Information processing system and information processing method

ABSTRACT

An information processing system includes a terminal device and a server device. When recommending subsidiary contents, recommended contents are extracted at the server, and recommended content information is returned to the terminal device. At the terminal device, a recommendation order is set regarding the recommended contents which the recommended content information indicates, upon which the recommended contents are presented, such that recommended content extracting processing and recommendation order setting processing is dispersed among the server device and terminal device.

CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of and claims the benefit under 35U.S.C. §120 of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/476,342, titled“INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEM AND INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD,” filedon Jun. 2, 2009, which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to JapanesePatent Application 2008-146013, filed Jun. 3, 2008, each of which ishereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to, for example, an information processingsystem which can be used in creating contents, and sharing of data ofthe created contents, over a network, and to an information processingmethod thereof applied to the information processing system.

2. Description of the Related Art

As for one form of network usage, so-called content distribution andsharing of audio, video, and so forth, has widely come to be performed.For example, with a content distribution system, a great number of datafiles serving as contents to be distributed are saved and managed at aserver. A user having an information processing terminal device such asa personal computer operates application software (client software)having a client function corresponding to content distribution, so as todownload the desired content from the server. The data file serving ascontent that has been downloaded in this way is normally managed bybeing stored and saved in a storage device within the informationprocessing terminal device by the client software. Subsequently, theuser can listen to/view and enjoy this as sound and/or video, byperforming an operation at the client software for playing the data fileserving as the content stored in the information processing terminaldevice.

Also, with a content sharing system, a user of an information processingterminal, for example, uploads to a server data files serving ascontents such as audio, video, and so forth. A server of such a sharingsystem has a site (Web page) for posting uploaded contents. A user of ageneral information processing terminal device can access this site andsearch for contents he/she is interested in, for example. Contents foundby this searching are accessed and played, so as to be viewed/listenedto, and thus are shared.

On the other hand, there is application software (editing software)capable of taking in audio data and video data and the like as material,so as to be modified, edited, and a new tune can be created, and inrecent years in particular, there is widespread use thereof, from thatwhich is easy to operate to complicated, by also common users as well.

As described above, such editing software can execute processing forchanging actual data (audio/video data and so forth) serving ascontents, for editing thereof. Accordingly, in the case of audiocontents for example, modifying and editing or the like by taking in apart of original tune data as material, such with as so-called sampling,mash-ups, and so forth, can be easily performed. In fact, many tunescreated by such techniques have been released by professional musiciansor the like, for example. Description of such related art can be foundin Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-113066and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-72502.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

With a background such as described above, it can be thought that therewould be a considerable number of common users who desire not only tosimply play and enjoy the data of contents which can be obtained bycontent distribution and content sharing and so forth, but also creatingnew works by performing secondary editing using editing software, andpublicly presenting (posting) the work.

Accordingly, to answer the demand of such general users, it has beenfound desirable to provide, as a content sharing system, an arrangementon a network whereby general users for example can perform secondary useof contents held at the user terminal side and perform editing to createsubsidiary contents, and can publicly present contents created in thisway, by way of a server or the like.

With such a content sharing system, a great number of subsidiarycontents for example, will exist on the server and be shared. To makethings easier for the user with the content sharing system, there isdemand to enable subsidiary contents which are appropriate forrecommendation to each user to be found as efficiently as possible, fromthese subsidiary contents.

An information processing system according to an embodiment of thepresent invention includes: a terminal device; and a server device; theserver device further including a storing managing unit, configured tostore and manage a subsidiary content which is created by editingprocessing secondarily using at least one content as editing material,the subsidiary content including, as information for playing the contentof contents, playback control information formed including contentinstructing playback regarding actual content data of a primary contentwhich is source editing material, a subsidiary content extracting unitconfigured to extract subsidiary contents including the primary contentwhich the content identifier that has been received indicates in thesource editing material, from subsidiary contents managed by the storingmanaging unit, a recommended content information transmitting unit,configured to take subsidiary contents extracted by the subsidiarycontent extracting unit as recommended contents, and transmitrecommended content information formed of metadata corresponding to eachof the recommended contents, to the terminal device; and the terminaldevice further including a playback unit, configured to execute playbackprocessing regarding a held primary content which is a primary contentwhich a recommendation-receiving user is deemed to hold, a recommendedcontent information requesting unit, configured to transmit arecommended content information request to the server device, along witha content identifier identifying a primary content regarding whichplayback processing is being executed by the playback unit, arecommendation order setting unit, configured to set the recommendationorder of the recommended contents indicated by the received recommendedcontent information, by setting the recommendation order based on theusage state of the held primary content in the source editing materialfor each recommended content, and a presenting unit, configured topresent recommended contents indicated by the recommended contentinformation, such that the recommendation order is reflected therein.

An information processing system according to an embodiment of thepresent invention includes: a terminal device; and a server device; theserver device further including a storing managing unit, configured tostore and manage a subsidiary content which is created by editingprocessing secondarily using at least one content as editing material, asubsidiary content extracting unit configured to extract one or moresubsidiary contents from subsidiary contents managed by the storingmanaging unit, with the received metadata as an extracting condition, arecommended content information transmitting unit, configured to takesubsidiary contents extracted by the subsidiary content extracting unitas recommended contents, and transmit recommended content informationformed of metadata of each of the recommended contents, to the terminaldevice; and the terminal device including a playback unit, configured toexecute playback processing regarding contents, a recommended contentinformation requesting unit, configured to transmit a recommendedcontent information request to the server device, along with metadataadded to a content regarding which playback processing is being executedby the playback unit, a recommendation order setting unit, configured toset the recommendation order of the recommended contents indicated bythe received recommended content information, by setting therecommendation order based on the number of times of appearance of thecontent of metadata description for each recommended content included inthe recommended content information, in the content of metadatadescription in all held contents which the recommendation-receiving useris deemed to hold, and a presenting unit, configured to presentrecommended contents indicated by the recommended content information,such that the recommendation order is reflected therein.

In the above configurations, the contents to be recommended aresubsidiary content files. A subsidiary content file is created bysecondary usage of one or more content files, and is a file of astructure having playback control information for instructing playbackof actual content data which a primary content file used as sourceediting material includes.

At the time of recommending the subsidiary content, first, recommendedcontents are extracted at the server and recommended content informationis returned to the terminal device. At the terminal device, arecommendation order is set regarding the recommended contents which therecommended content information indicates, and then the recommendedcontents are presented. That is to say, with these configurations, atthe terminal device side, a recommended content relating to one contentwhich is being played at that time is ultimately presented along withthe recommendation order thereof, with processing being dispersed, inthat extracting of recommended contents is performed at the serverdevice, and setting of recommendation order is performed at the terminaldevice.

In this way, with the above configurations, recommended contentextracting processing, and recommendation order setting processing, areperformed dispersed between the server device and terminal device, sothere is no great burden placed on one of the devices, and operationsfor presenting recommended contents along with the recommendation ordercan be efficiently realized as for the overall system.

Also, the starting point for extracting recommended contents isrestricted to just a content being played at the terminal device, somarked reduction in burden can be achieved as compared to aconfiguration wherein recommended contents are extracted with the manycontents which a recommendation-receiving user holds, as the objectthereof.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a contentcreating/sharing system corresponding to an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a basic usage form of a contentcreating/sharing system according to an embodiment of the presentinvention, and procedure examples of system operations correspondingthereto;

FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically illustrating the flow of subsidiarycontent creation according to the embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically illustrating the flow of subsidiarycontent playing according to the embodiment;

FIGS. 5A through 5C are diagrams illustrating a usage form example ofediting material contents at the time of creating a subsidiary content;

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an internal configuration example of aprimary content server;

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an internal configuration example of asubsidiary content server;

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an internal configuration example of acommunication content server;

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an internal configuration example of auser terminal device;

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of data contents to bestored in an HDD of the user terminal device;

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a program configuration exampleserving as a content managing/creating tool of a contentcreating/sharing application with functional blocks;

FIGS. 12A and 12B are diagrams schematically illustrating a structuralexample of a subsidiary content file and a primary content file;

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating examples of information items formingheader information of a content file;

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example of information itemsforming present content related basic information, which is one ofinformation items forming the header information;

FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating a structural example of used sourceediting material content information and used editing material contentinformation in a subsidiary content playback control file;

FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating an example of what is in playbackcontrol information in a subsidiary content file;

FIG. 17 is a flowchart illustrating an example of processing proceduresfor reflecting the usage agreement range settings for editing materialcontents on a user interface at the time performing subsidiary contentediting processing by the content creating/sharing application;

FIG. 18 is a flowchart illustrating an example of processing proceduresup to the content creating/sharing application creating a subsidiarycontent file as subsidiary content editing processing;

FIG. 19 is a flowchart illustrating uploading subsidiary contents by theuser terminal device, and an example of processing procedures by thesubsidiary content server in response;

FIG. 20 is a flowchart illustrating downloading subsidiary contents bythe user terminal device, and an example of processing procedures by thesubsidiary content server in response;

FIG. 21 is a flowchart illustrating an example of playing processingprocedures of subsidiary contents by the user terminal device;

FIG. 22 is a sequence diagram illustrating an example of processingperformed with the content creating/sharing system in relation torecommendation of subsidiary contents;

FIG. 23 is a diagram schematically illustrating the basic concept ofrecommended content extracting processing in FIG. 22;

FIG. 24 is a diagram schematically illustrating an example of thestricture of a recommended content list;

FIG. 25 is a flowchart illustrating an example of processing proceduresfor setting the recommendation order in FIG. 22;

FIG. 26 is a sequence diagram illustrating an example of processingperformed with the content creating/sharing system in relation torecommendation of subsidiary contents, as a modification;

FIG. 27 is a flowchart illustrating an example of processing proceduresfor setting the recommendation order in FIG. 26;

FIG. 28 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a userprofile; and

FIG. 29 is a sequence diagram illustrating an example of processingperformed with the content creating/sharing system in relation torecommendation of subsidiary contents, as an extended example.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 1 illustrates a configuration example of an information processingsystem, having information processing devices, according to anembodiment of the present invention.

Note that the information processing system according to the presentembodiment handles primary content files and subsidiary content files ascontent files, as will be described later. In the following, contentfiles will be referred to simply as “content files” in the event thatprimary content files and subsidiary content files do not have to bedistinguished. Also, in the case of describing contents in accordancewith abstract concepts, primary content files will also be referred toas “primary contents”, and subsidiary content files will also bereferred to as “subsidiary contents”. Moreover, contents will bereferred to simply as “contents” in the event that primary contents andsubsidiary contents do not have to be distinguished.

As shown in this drawing, the information processing system according tothe present embodiment can first be viewed as being formed by connectinga primary content server 1, a subsidiary content server 2, acommunication server 3, and a great number of user terminal devices 4,connected by a network 5.

The information processing system according to the present embodimentrealizes a content creating/sharing system by such a deviceconfiguration. That is to say, so-called content distribution(distribution of primary contents) and sharing of contents created byusers (subsidiary contents) among users, on a network, are realized.

Note that “contents” as used here primarily refer to audio contentscorresponding to music, songs, and the like, or video contents which ismoving images. Further, the content types of video contents may beconsidered to include still images, such as photographs and the like.Also, document data, programs to be executed by the informationprocessing device, and so forth, can be handled as contents.

The primary content server 1 stores and manages in a database a greatnumber of content data, in a predetermined format, as primary contents.The primary content server 1 is configured so as to externally transmitdata which is specified primary contents to the requesting user terminaldevices 4, in response to download requests from the user terminaldevices 4 via the network. Note that the primary contents here are, forexample, videos or tunes or the like which artists and the like havecreated, provided from an affiliated record label.

The subsidiary content server 2 is capable of storing and managing dataof a great number of subsidiary content files, which is data serving assubsidiary contents, in a database. As described later, a subsidiarycontent file is uploaded from a user terminal device 4 to the subsidiarycontent server 2 via the network. The subsidiary content server 2 storesthe subsidiary content file uploaded in this way, handling as subsidiarycontents. Also, a specified subsidiary content file is transmitted andoutput by the subsidiary content server 2 to a requesting user terminaldevice 4, in response to a download request from the user terminaldevice 4 via the network.

The communication server 3 is a server having functions for providinginter-user communication services, such as for example, SNS (SocialNetworking Service), services for individuals to put information outwhich is also widely recognized as CGM (Consumer Generated Media) suchas blogs, and so forth.

A user terminal device 4 is a network device which a general user uses,and actually is a personal computer provided with network communicationfunctions such as LAN or the like, for example. These user terminaldevices 4 have installed an application program serving as a contentcreating/sharing application 100, as described later. The user operatesthis content creating/sharing application 100, and thus is enabled toperform such as downloading primary content files from the primarycontent server 1, creating new subsidiary content due to editing workusing the downloaded primary content file (and subsidiary content file),uploading the created subsidiary content file to the subsidiary contentserver 2, downloading subsidiary content files from the subsidiarycontent server 2, using SNS services, writing/browsing blogs using thecommunication server 3, and so on.

Next, an example of basic operations relating to content distribution,of the information processing system according to the present embodimentassuming the configuration shown in FIG. 1 described above, will bedescribed with reference to FIG. 2, following a basic usage form exampleby a user of a user terminal device 4. Note that in the description inFIG. 2, description will be made following the numbers of procedures andoperations indicated by alphanumeric characters in the brackets [ ].Also, here, user terminal devices 4A and 4B are shown as being used bytwo users A and B, respectively, as user terminal devices 4. In thisdrawing, the network 5 which exists between the primary content server1, subsidiary content server 2, communication server 3, and userterminal devices 4 is omitted from the drawings.

Procedure 1

First, the user A accesses a content download site on the primarycontent server 1 with the user terminal device 4A (contentcreating/sharing application 100), and then searches the contentdownload side for primary contents which the user wants to download, andperforms operations for downloading the searched primary contents. Inresponse to this operation, the user terminal device 4A transmits adownload request to the primary content server 1.

Now, we will say that with the content creating/sharing system accordingto the present embodiment, the downloading of primary contents isbasically charged for, with the user A performing proper purchasingprocedures at the time of transmitting a download request to the primarycontent server 1. As far as purchasing procedures go, for example, thismay be payment procedures for charges set individually in increments ofcontents or in increments of albums or the like, or may be subscriptionswhich have become widespread as of recent. Also, an arrangement may beconceived wherein primary contents are provided free of charge, an inthis case, there are no purchasing procedures for the user A.

Upon receiving a download request as described above, the primarycontent server 1 first performs authentication regarding the requestinguser for example, and so forth, and determines whether or not this is alegitimate download request. In the event that determination is madethat this is a legitimate download, the primary contents (primarycontent file) specified at the time of the download request are searchedfor from the primary contents stored within itself, and data of the fileserving as the searched primary contents is transmitted to therequesting user terminal device 4.

Note that the actual entity of the primary content file which theprimary content server 1 stores while managing in a database here is ofa structure wherein main information serving as actual content data hasheader information attached thereto. “Actual content data” in this caserefers to audio data, moving image data, and still image data accordingto a predetermined format (data for playing the actual content of theprimary contents), as what the content of the contents is. That is tosay, the primary content data according to the present embodiment isthat from which contents can be played by performing audio signalprocessing and video signal processing and so forth.

Also, header information includes, besides a unique content ID (contentidentifier) for each content file, various types of metadata (title,artist, title of album to which the data belongs, genre, data format,data size, etc.).

The primary content data transmitted from the primary content server 1as described above is received at the user terminal device 4A. The userterminal device 4A (content creating/sharing application 100) stores andsaves this received primary content data in a storage medium such as aninternal HDD or the like. The content creating/sharing application 100has functions for managing the primary content stored and saved in thisway according to a predetermined form based on the header informationfor example, and executing playback control in accordance with useroperations.

Thus, with this arrangement, primary content data stored in the primarycontent server 1 can be downloaded to user terminal devices 4, by beingpurchased by the user as a general principle. That is to say, forprocedure 1, so-called content distribution is performed. Note that theprimary content data stored and saved at the user terminal device 4A canbe played by the content creating/sharing application 100, and output asimages, audio, etc., with an AV (Audio-Visual) device or the likeconnected to the user terminal device 4A, for example.

Procedure 2

Now, generally, with content distribution via network, usage of contentsfollowing downloading is restricted to use such as playback, with acertain level of copy restrictions of data being provided. In otherwords, a user who has obtained contents by downloading is normally onlypermitted usage within a certain range, and is not provided with rightsto create new contents as secondary creations by performing editingbased on the obtained audio contents that have been acquired, forexample.

In comparison to this, with the present embodiment, the primary contentis content regarding which using as material for secondary creationwithin a range set beforehand (secondary usage, secondary editing) hasbeen permitted, as a matter of principle. Note that secondary usage ofthe primary content in the present embodiment is set within the range ofrights which the writer of the primary content has authorized.

The content creating/sharing application 100 is capable of creatingaudio contents as a new tune, by executing editing processing inaccordance with user operations to perform secondary usage of theprimary contents managed in itself (locally stored and saved) as editingmaterial.

Also, at the time of editing such contents for example, plug-in datacorresponding to predetermined special effects provided at an effectdatabase 6 can be obtained, and editing performed using this. Also, inthe same way, material such as audio, images, etc., provided at amaterial database 7 can be obtained, and editing performed by addingthis. Note that the effect database 6 and material database 7 may besituated on a network, or may exist locally on the user terminal device4A.

With the present embodiment, contents created in this way are calledsubsidiary contents, and are distinguished from primary contents. As forthe procedure 2, a certain subsidiary content is created by operatingoperations as to the user terminal device 4A on which the contentcreating/sharing application 100 is running.

Note that the actual entity of the data serving as the subsidiarycontent created by this procedure 2 is not the digital audio data andvideo data having the tune content as with the primary content, butrather is generated with playback control information. That is to say,this is playback control information describing specification of effects(special effects), such as instructions of what portion of the digitalaudio data and digital video data serving as the secondarily usedprimary contents (editing material contents) is to be played and outputat which timing.

Now, FIGS. 5A through 5C illustrate a concept of creating subsidiarycontents with the content creating/sharing application 100. Asschematically illustrated in FIGS. 5A through 5C, the editing materialcontents A, B, and C which are objects of secondary use are used, andthe user performs editing operations as to the content creating/sharingapplication 100 which reflect the intent of editing of the user. Thecontent creating/sharing application 100 performs editing processingcorresponding to the editing operations, and creates and outputs asubsidiary content file as a result. The structure of the subsidiarycontent file created in this way has the above-described playbackcontrol information as the main entity of the data.

The subsidiary content data serving as this playback control information(i.e., the subsidiary content playback control information) can be mademarkedly smaller in data size as compared to video data or audio data orthe like, for example. Accordingly, the storage capacity of the storagemedium such as the HDD or the like to store the subsidiary content dataat the subsidiary content server 2 can be conserved and effectivelyused. Also, the amount of transmitted data is smaller at the time oftransmission/reception of the subsidiary content data on the network,and accordingly does not make traffic heavier, for example.

Performing editing with already-existing contents as material, as withthe secondary editing with the present embodiment, to create a secondarywork as a new content, is called sampling, mash-up, and so forth, withprofessional musicians and the like also often performing this. In lightof such, it is naturally conceivable that there is desire and demand ofgeneral people to create contents as secondary works in the same way.However, in reality, it is extremely difficult for general people tocreate contents as secondary works upon having properly clearedcopyright issues.

Accordingly, as for the content creating/sharing system according to thepresent embodiment, an attempt has been made to increase theentertainment nature for the user, by first enabling general users tolegally perform secondary editing using distributed contents.

To this end, the primary contents according to the present embodimenthave been positioned as contents regarding which a user which hasdownloaded (purchased) is permitted to use secondarily in the range ofrights which the copyright holder has authorized. That is to say, thecontent distribution service with the primary content server 1 accordingto the present embodiment is for distributing contents regarding whichsecondary usage has been proactively permitted. However, in the case ofthe present embodiment, the editing work which is secondary use ofprimary contents should be limited to user operations at the contentcreating/sharing application 100 developed for the contentcreating/sharing system according to the present invention at the least,and should be arranged such that the editing work is not performed byother editing software or the like unrelated to the contentcreating/sharing system according to the present embodiment.

Procedure 3

The data of the subsidiary content file created by the user A asdescribed in Procedure 2 above is saved only at the user terminal device4A, with playback processing being performed by the playback functionsof the content creating/sharing application 100 as described later withFIG. 4, and images/audio of the contents can be played as the subsidiarycontent. With this in mind, the present embodiment further enables userswho have the services of the content creating/sharing application 100according to the present embodiment to share the subsidiary contentscreated by users, by making public on a network.

Now, let us say that the user A desires to share subsidiary contentscreated by the above Procedure 2. Accordingly, the user A performspredetermined operations as to the content creating/sharing application100, so as to upload the data of the subsidiary content file created bythe Procedure 2 to the subsidiary content server 2. This is Procedure 3.

Procedure 4

The subsidiary content server 2 saves the subsidiary content filetransmitted as an upload as described above, so as to be newlyregistered in a database. At this time, the subsidiary content server 2sets the saving location thereof (e.g., represented by an address suchas a URL (Uniform Resource Locator)), and then performs savingprocessing of the subsidiary content file and registration thereof inthe database.

Note that the subsidiary content server 2 has publishing functions withregard to the subsidiary content registered in the database. That is tosay, the subsidiary content registered in Procedure 4 is subsequentlypublished at the subsidiary content server 2, can be downloaded inresponse to download requests from the user terminal device 4 (contentcreating/sharing application 100).

Procedure 5

Upon saving and managing the subsidiary content file as described above,the subsidiary content server 2 transmits, to the upload requesting userterminal device 4A, an address indicating the saving location of thesubsidiary content (subsidiary content file) that has been uploaded(saving location address), to notify the saving location thereof.

The content creating/sharing application 100 of the user terminal device4A receives the above saving location address, and stores and saves, andmanages this in a predetermined storage medium. The user A can, at anytime, output the saving location address of the subsidiary content whichhe/she has uploaded by Procedure 2, by performing a predeterminedoperation as to the content creating/sharing application 100.

Procedure 6

As described earlier, the subsidiary content server 2 has a publishingfunction regarding the subsidiary contents registered in the database.Accordingly, the subsidiary content which the user A has created anduploaded this time can be browsed by users of an indeterminate number ofuser terminal devices 4 (content creating/sharing applications 100)accessing the content publishing site provided by the subsidiary contentserver 2, as a general principle. Also, with the present embodiment, theuser terminal devices 4 of all users can download desired subsidiarycontents, as a general principle.

Thereupon, the user A which has obtained the saving location address inProcedure 5 can announce to other users in several ways that his ownsubsidiary contents have been published at the subsidiary content server2. Procedure 6 corresponds to one of the publishing announcementmethods, and is carried out by accessing the communication server 3 asshown in the drawing, and writing to his own page in an SNS, or his ownblog or the like, for example, that the subsidiary contents created byhimself have been published. At this time, the URL serving as the savinglocation address obtained in Procedure 5 is also copied in so as to bewritten in.

Procedure 7

Upon a user B for example operating the content creating/sharingapplication 100 installed in the user terminal device 4B after the userA has written in as described above with Procedure 6 and accessing andbrowsing the page of the user A in the SNS or the blog of the user A,he/she knows that subsidiary content of the user A has been newlypublished. That is to say, in this case, the user B has indirectlyreceived the announcement regarding the new publishing of the subsidiarycontent created by the user A, via the SNS or blog. Procedure 7indicates such indirect announcement of subsidiary content publishingbeing performed.

Procedure 8

Procedure 8 will be given as another way for publishing announcement. Asfor this Procedure 8, the user B side is notified that the subsidiarycontent created by the user A has been disclosed by creating andtransmitting mail using a mail function provided to the SNS, forexample. This is a more direct form of announcement, as compared to theannouncement according to the flow of the above-described Procedure 6and Procedure 7. Also, in the event of announcing by e-mail and so forthin this way, the saving location address of the subsidiary content iscopied into the body for example, so as to be listed.

Procedure 9

In this way, the user B can indirectly or directly receive announcementand know that the subsidiary content created by the user A has beennewly published. In the event that the user B desires to enjoy thesubsidiary content of the user A that has been newly published, first,the subsidiary content is downloaded by the content creating/sharingapplication 100. This is Procedure 9.

At the time of downloading the subsidiary content, a clicking operationor the like is performed as to the saving location address shown as alink in the body of the SNS diary page or blog, for example. Note thatat the time of writing to an SNS diary page or blog, in the event theaddress information such as a URL is written in, this text stringportion is presented as a link.

In response to performing a clicking operation as to the saving locationaddress as described above, the content creating/sharing application 100accesses this saving location address. That is to say, of the addresseson the subsidiary content server 2, an address indicating the locationwhere the file of the subsidiary content which the user A has createdand published (subsidiary content file) has been saved, is accessed. Thesubsidiary content file saved at that saving location is then sent outto the user terminal device 4B. The subsidiary content file set out inthis way as received at the user terminal device 4B, and saving andmanagement is performed under control of the content creating/sharingapplication 100. Accordingly, subsidiary content is downloaded.

Procedure 10

Upon the subsidiary content of the user A being saved and managed asdescribed above, playing of the subsidiary content by the contentcreating/sharing application 100 of the user terminal device 4B becomesavailable. Procedure 10 is a procedure for playing subsidiary contentfile, so that the content of the subsidiary contents are output asvideo, sound, and so forth, in accordance with playback instructionoperations as to the content creating/sharing application 100 by theuser B.

FIG. 4 shows a playback concept of subsidiary contents with the contentcreating/sharing application 100. At the time of playing the subsidiarycontent, first, the content creating/sharing application 100 performsinterpretation processing of the playback control information of thesubsidiary content file which is the actual data. As a result of thisinterpretation, the content creating/sharing application 100 canrecognize first, for example, which primary content file has the actualcontent data for playing (source editing material content), and also inthe playing sequence, which portion of the actual content data (videodata, audio data, etc.) of the source editing material contents havebeen used in what manner at what playing time, and so forth, forexample.

In this diagram, an example of results is shown in a case thatrecognition has been made that source editing material contents A, B,and C have been used. Following the recognition results thereof, thecontent creating/sharing application 100 uses the actual contents of theprimary content files serving as the source editing material contents A,B, and C, to execute playback control. Consequently, the content of thecontents serving as the subsidiary content is played as images andsound.

According to the description of FIG. 4 above, playing of the subsidiarycontent has to have the actual content data of the source editingmaterial content used for creating the subsidiary content. That is tosay, with the present embodiment, in order to play a subsidiary contentfile, the data of the source editing material contents has to exist atthe same local location as the content creating/sharing application 100,however temporarily. Accordingly, in the event that the source editingmaterial contents are not locally saved as a primary content file at thetime of attempting to play the subsidiary content, this has to beobtained locally.

Procedure 11

Accordingly, in such a case as described above, procedures have to beperformed for downloading and acquiring any editing material contentswhich are not locally available. Procedure 11 in FIG. 2 is a procedureto be performed to this end in the process of playing contents withProcedure 10.

As can be understood from the description so far, the source editingmaterial contents are actual content data, so as a principle, the sourceediting material contents are primary contents. Accordingly, inProcedure 11, the primary content server 1 is accessed by the userterminal device 4B (content creating/sharing application 100) andprimary contents for playing the subsidiary content in this Procedure 10but not existing locally are downloaded. Due to this downloading, thesource editing material contents for playing the subsidiary content allexist locally, and playback output can be properly executed as describedwith FIG. 4.

Note that several forms of data of the primary contents existing locallydue to the downloading in Procedure 11 can be conceived. First, a formcan be conceived wherein this is made to exist locally, in a state ofbeing stored in saved as to an auxiliary storage device such as an HDD,in the same way as with the case of a normal download according toProcedure 1. As for another, a form can be conceived wherein this istemporarily held in a main storage device such as RAM, and is erased inresponse to the content creating/sharing application 100 no longer beingin a state wherein the playback operation of the subsidiary content canbe performed, for example. While primary contents have been described asbeing basically charged for, for example, operations can be conceivedwherein in the case of temporary storage, these are free of charge, orfees are set cheaper than normal downloads, or the like.

Also, according to the description of FIG. 2 above, with creating ofsubsidiary contents according to the present embodiment, primarycontents are directly used as the contents of editing material (editingmaterial contents), in a secondary usage manner. That is to say, theediting material contents in this case are primary contents of which theactual content data has to be used at the time of playing (also referredto as “source editing material contents”).

However, not only primary contents but also subsidiary contents can beincluded as the editing material contents which are subjected tosecondary usage in the present embodiment. This point will besupplemented with reference to FIGS. 5A through 5C. FIGS. 5A through 5Ceach illustrate cases of creating one subsidiary content by editing withsecondary usage of two editing material contents.

First, FIG. 5A illustrates a case wherein the editing material contentsA and B are each primary contents, in the same way as with the exampleof creating subsidiary content described with FIG. 2. That is to say,this shows creating of subsidiary content by executing editingprocessing with a primary content A taken as editing material content A,and a primary content B which is a different primary content taken asediting material content B. The subsidiary content in this case includesat least a part of the primary content A and primary content B as forthe contents thereof, as shown in the drawing. That is to say, theprimary contents A and B are used as the contents which are the originalediting material (i.e., source editing material contents).

FIG. 5B illustrates creating a subsidiary content by editing withsecondary usage of the editing material content A which is the sameprimary content as in FIG. 5A, and editing material content C which issubsidiary content created using primary contents C and D secondarily.The subsidiary content in this case includes at least a part of theprimary content A included in the editing material content A, and atleast a part of each of the primary contents C and D included in theediting material content C, as for the content of the contents thereof.That is to say, the primary contents A, C and D are used as the originalediting material content, and accordingly, in the event of playing thesubsidiary content shown in FIG. 5B here, the primary contents A, C, andD have to be locally situated.

FIG. 5C illustrates creating a subsidiary content by secondary usage ofthe two editing material contents C and D which are subsidiary contents.The subsidiary content newly created in this case includes at least apart of each of the primary contents C and D included in the editingmaterial content C, and a part of each of the primary contents E and Fincluded in the editing material content D, as for the content of thecontents thereof. Accordingly, the primary contents C, D, E, and F haveto be locally situated in the event of playing the new subsidiarycontent shown in FIG. 5C.

Also, in the event of using subsidiary contents as editing materialcontents for creating subsidiary content as in the above FIGS. 5B and5C, first, the user performs download for example, and stores and savesat the user terminal device 4, in order to situate the subsidiarycontent serving as the editing material contents locally, in the sameway as with handling primary content as editing material content.

Also, in the event of the subsidiary content server 2 performingtransmission of subsidiary content data in response to the downloadrequest for subsidiary content, in according with Procedure 9 in FIG. 2,the subsidiary content is encrypted. This encryption can be decrypted byan authorized content creating/sharing application 100, but the contentcreating/sharing application 100 is arranged to operate such that onlysubsidiary content data decrypted by this encryption processing isplayed, and subsidiary content data not encrypted to begin with forexample, or subsidiary content data encrypted by another format oralgorithm, is not played. That is to say, the content creating/sharingapplication 100 only plays that downloaded and obtained from thesubsidiary content server 2 with regard to externally-obtainedsubsidiary content data.

Accordingly, for example, even in the event that users directly exchangesubsidiary content files between user terminal devices by directcommunication such as P2P (Peer-to-Peer) network communication or e-mailfile attachment or FTP (File Transport Protocol) or the like, or bydirect exchange using removable media, files obtained by users in thisway will not play properly since there is no encryption by thesubsidiary content server 2. That is to say, with the presentembodiment, subsidiary content of others will not play properly unlessdownloaded from the subsidiary content server 2. Accordingly, with thecontent creating/sharing system according to the present embodiment,circulation and reproduction of illegal subsidiary contents violatingcopyrights over the network is avoided. Thus, protection of the rightsof copyright holders of the primary contents and subsidiary contents canbe implemented.

As can be understood from the description in FIGS. 2 through 5C, withthe content creating/sharing system according to the present embodiment,first, primary contents are downloadable. That is to say, users candownload (purchase) and enjoy contents which they like by normal contentdistribution. Based on this, usage rights are set whereby secondaryusage to take the primary contents as editing materials is enabled, sousers can perform editing with the primary contents as materials andcreate their own works. Further, subsidiary contents which are workscreated in this way can be publicly published using communicationtechniques with CGM such as SNSs and blogs and so forth. That is to say,general users can edit contents with copyrights as material and createnew contents (subsidiary contents) and further publicly publish thesubsidiary contents, in a proper manner, which has heretofore beenconsidered legally difficult due to problems such as copyrights and soforth.

Also, with the present embodiment, the actual entity of the subsidiarycontents are playback control information, formed including at leastdescription instructing playing of primary contents which are theoriginal editing material used by the subsidiary contents.

The content creating/sharing application 100 has playback functions ofthe subsidiary content, but also has editing functions for creating thesubsidiary content. Accordingly, as a form of playback of the subsidiarycontents, the content creating/sharing application 100 can not onlyexecute processing for simple audio playback, but also reflect theediting history of the subsidiary content being played in the userinterface of the editing function described above, for example. That isto say, as a benefit of the actual entity of the subsidiary contentbeing taken as the playback control information, the user can use theediting functions of the content creating/sharing application 100 tofind out in detail how the downloaded subsidiary content has beenedited.

Next, an example of a technical configuration for realizing theoperations as the content creating/sharing system according to thepresent embodiment described so far, will be described. First, FIG. 6illustrates an internal configuration example of the primary contentserver 1. As shown in this drawing, the primary content server 1includes a control unit 11, a storage unit 12, an authenticationprocessing unit 13, a search processing unit 14, a database managementunit 15, a settlement processing unit 16, an encryption processing unit17, and a network interface 18.

The control unit 11 is a member which centrally executes various typesof control processing at the primary content server 1, and is configuredhaving a hardware configuration equivalent to the center of a computersystem, formed of, for example, a CPU (Central Processing Unit), RAM(main storage device), and so forth.

The storage unit 12 is configured having an HDD or the like for example,and stores a primary content database 12 a. The primary content database12 a is information increments wherein data files serving as primarycontents to be distributed have been databased.

The authentication processing unit 13 executes predeterminedauthentication processing regarding whether a valid user or not, in theevent of a download request having been made for example, using the userID and password and the like included in that request. Only in the eventthat the authentication processing results are OK is a primary contenttransmitted in response to the request.

The search processing unit 14 is a member which cooperates with thedatabase management unit 15 to access the primary content database 12 aand execute processing for searching for intended primary contents.

The database management unit 15 performs management with regard to theprimary content database 12 a. For example, in the event that newprimary contents are supplied, the new primary contents are registeredto the primary content database 12 a which is updated in responsethereto. Also, in the event of deleting primary contents, deletion ofthe primary content data and updating of the database correspondingly isperformed in the same way.

The settlement processing unit 16 executes processing such as settlementas to payment of charges at the user side, relating to pay primarycontents.

The encryption processing unit 17 is a member which executes processingfor subjecting primary content data to be transmitted from the primarycontent server 1 to a user terminal device 4 to predeterminedencryption.

The network interface 18 is a member for performing communication viathe network 5, and reception of download requests and correspondingtransmission of primary contents for example, are realized by thenetwork interface 18 executing communication processing in accordancewith the control of the control unit 11.

FIG. 7 illustrates an internal configuration example of the subsidiarycontent server 2. Here, the subsidiary content server 2 has a controlunit 21, a storage unit 22, an authentication processing unit 23, asearch processing unit 24, a recommended content extraction processingunit 25, a content database management unit 26A, a saving locationsetting processing unit 27, an encryption processing unit 28, and anetwork interface 29.

The control unit 21 is a member which centrally executes various typesof control processing in the subsidiary content server 2. This also hasa hardware configuration equivalent to the center of a computer system,formed of, for example, a CPU, RAM (main storage device), and so forth.

The storage unit 22 is configured having an HDD or the like for example,and stores a subsidiary content database 22 a and a content profiledatabase 22 b.

The subsidiary content database 22 a is information increments whereinsubsidiary content files, have been databased.

The authentication processing unit 23 executes predeterminedauthentication processing regarding whether a valid user or not, in theevent of a download request for subsidiary content having been made forexample, using the user ID and password and the like included in thatrequest.

The search processing unit 24 is a member which cooperates with thecontent database management unit 26 to access the subsidiary contentdatabase 22 a and execute processing for searching for intendedsubsidiary contents.

The recommended content extraction processing unit 25 executesprocessing for extracting (searching) recommended contents from thesubsidiary contents stored in the subsidiary content database 22 a, andgenerating recommended content list information in which the extractedrecommended contents are reflected.

Recommended contents are subsidiary contents which are deemed to beappropriate and suitable for each user (user terminal device 4), andhaving value of recommending to that user.

The content database management unit 26 performs management with regardto the subsidiary content database 22 a in the storage unit 22. Forexample, in the event that new subsidiary contents (subsidiary contentfiles) are uploaded, the uploaded subsidiary contents are registered tothe subsidiary content database 22 a which is updated in responsethereto. Also, in the event of deleting subsidiary contents (subsidiarycontent files), deletion processing to this end and updating of thedatabase corresponding to the deletion results is performed in the sameway.

The encryption processing unit 28 is a member which executes processingfor subjecting the subsidiary content data to be transmitted from thesubsidiary content server 2 to a user terminal device 4 to predeterminedencryption. Also, depending on the system operation, subsidiary contentdata may be encrypted and transmitted from user terminal devices 4 atthe time of uploading subsidiary contents, and in this case, theencryption processing unit 28 is arranged to execute processing fordecrypting the encryption thereof as well.

The network interface 29 is a member for performing communication viathe network 5. Reception of uploaded subsidiary contents and downloadrequests for example, and transmission of subsidiary content datacorresponding to download requests (subsidiary content files) arerealized by the network interface 29 executing communication processingin accordance with the control of the control unit 21.

FIG. 8 illustrates an internal configuration example of thecommunication server 3. As shown in the drawing, the communicationserver 3 includes a control unit 31, a storage unit 32, anauthentication processing unit 33, a blog running processing unit 34, anSNS running processing unit 35, and a network interface 36. Note thatthe communication server 3 in this case provides communication serviceswith blogs and SNSs.

The control unit 31 is a member which centrally executes various typesof control processing in the communication server 3, and also has ahardware configuration equivalent to the center of a computer system,formed of, for example, a CPU, RAM (main storage device), and so forth.

The storage unit 32 is configured having an HDD or the like for example,and stores a blog database 32 a and SNS database 32 b. For example, theblog database 32 a is information increments wherein data of a blogwhich the user has started have been databased. The SNS database 32 b isinformation increments wherein page contents and the like of each SNSuser have been databased.

The authentication processing unit 33 in this case executesauthentication processing in response to logins for updating blogs,requests for SNS logins, and so forth, using the user ID and passwordand the like included in the requests. In the event that theauthentication processing results are OK, the above login is successful.

The blog running processing unit 34 executes various types ofpredetermined processing for properly running a blog. For example,processing is executed such as transmission of blog screen data,transmission of blog posting screens, and so forth, in response to blogaccess requests from user terminal devices 4, valid blog posting screenrequests, and so forth. Also, processing for managing the blog database32 a, such as updating the blog database 32 a such that posts to theblog are reflected, is also executed.

In the same way, the SNS running processing unit 35 executes processingfor properly running an SNS, such as processing for transmission of dataof a page in response to SNS page access requests and databasemanagement beginning with updating the SNS database 32 b such that postssuch as diaries are reflected, and so forth.

The network interface 36 is a member for performing communication viathe network 5. This enables transmission of page data in response toaccess requests for blogs and SNSs, and so forth.

Note that while the communication server 3 is provided corresponding toSNSs and blogs, but separate servers may be configured for SNSs andblogs, for example. Also, a configuration may be made to provide morebasic CGM related services which have been widespread even before SNSsand blogs, such personal sites and homepages, for example, wherebyindividual users can post information other than SNSs and blogs and thelike.

FIG. 9 illustrates an internal configuration example of the userterminal device 4. Note that in this case, the hardware serving as theuser terminal device 4 is a personal computer.

First, the user terminal device 4 has a network interface 44 in order toperform communication via the network 5. Due to this network interface44 having been provided, the user terminal device 4 can communicationwith, for example, the primary content server 1, the subsidiary contentserver 2, the communication server 3, and other user terminal devices 4and so forth, via the network 5.

A CPU (Central Processing Unit) 41 is capable of executing various typesof processing following an OS (Operating System) and various types ofapplications programs installed in an HDD (hard disk drive) 48 forexample, and programs held in ROM 42. With the present embodiment, anapplication program serving as the content creating/sharing application100 is to be installed.

RAM 43 is a work area for the CPU 41, and suitably holds data andprograms and the like for the CPU 41 to execute various types ofprocessing.

An input/output interface 45 in this case has an input device 46 whichis a keyboard or mouse or the like for example connected thereto, withoperation signals being output from the input device 46 being convertedinto signals suitable for the CPU 41 and output to the CPU 41.

Also, the input/output interface 45 has a media drive 47 connectedthereto. This media drive 47 is a drive device configured such that datacan be recorded to and played from removable media of a predeterminedformat.

Also, the input/output interface 45 has connected thereto an HDD 48having a hard disk as a storage medium. The CPU 41 is arranged so as tobe able to record or read out data and programs and the like to and fromthe hard disk of the hard disk drive 48, via the input/output interface45.

Also, a display monitor 49 for displaying images is also connected tothe input/output interface 45.

FIG. 10 illustrates a data content example stored in the HDD 48 withrelation to usage of the content creating/sharing system according tothe present embodiment.

As shown in this drawing, with relation to the content creating/sharingsystem according to the present embodiment, first, the contentcreating/sharing application 100 is stored as data of an applicationprogram. Note that storing of the content creating/sharing application100 as to the HDD 48 is performed by installation processing. Also, asapplication files, one or more primary content files (primary contentfile group 103) and one or more subsidiary content files (subsidiarycontent file group 104) are stored under the control of the contentcreating/sharing application 100.

The content creating/sharing application 100 in this case can be viewedfunctionally as being generally configured of a program portion servingas a content managing/creating tool 101 and a program portion serving asa communication tool 102. The content managing/creating tool 101 isarranged to execute downloading of primary content files and subsidiarycontent files, and file operations with regard to primary content filesof the primary content file group 103 and subsidiary content files ofthe subsidiary content file group 104. Also executed are editingprocessing in accordance with editing operations, subsidiary contentfile creating processing in response to editing results, and so forth.The communication tool 102 executes processing for accessing thecommunication server 3 and operating blogs and SNSs.

FIG. 11 is a schematic representation of the program configuration withregard to the content managing/creating tool 101 in increments offunction blocks, and can be viewed of being made up of a communicationcontrol unit 111, a primary content acquisition processing unit 112, aprimary content managing processing unit 113, a subsidiary contentacquisition processing unit 114, a subsidiary content managingprocessing unit 115, a content transfer processing unit 116, a contentcreating processing unit 117, a subsidiary content filegenerating/interpreting processing unit 118, an encryption/decryptionprocessing unit 119, player unit 120, and a recommended content relatedprocessing unit 121, as shown in the drawing.

The communication control unit 111 is a member made up primarily ofprograms for executing communication between the primary content server1 and subsidiary content server 3 primarily with relation to contentmanagement/editing via the network.

The primary content acquisition processing unit 112 is a member made upof programs for downloading and acquiring primary contents. The primarycontent acquisition processing unit 112 provides a user interface fordownloading primary contents. Also, control for issuing commands asdownload requests and causing transmission by the communication controlunit 111, processing for receiving handover of packets of the primarycontent data received at the communication control unit 111 andrestoring to the data format as primary contents and so forth, are alsoexecuted by this primary content acquisition processing unit 112.

The primary content managing processing unit 113 is a member forexecuting processing for saving the primary content files acquired bythe primary content acquisition processing unit 112 in the HDD 48, andprocessing for managing the saved primary content files. For example,the primary content managing processing unit 113 also realizes contentmanagement such as sorting in accordance with artist name, album units,genre, and so forth.

The subsidiary content acquisition processing unit 114 is a member madeup of programs for downloading and acquiring subsidiary contents.

The subsidiary content managing processing unit 115 is a member forexecuting processing for saving subsidiary content files acquired by thesubsidiary content acquisition processing unit 114 in the HDD 48, andprocessing for managing the saved subsidiary content files.

The content transfer processing unit 116 executes control and processingsuch that data transfer of content files is executed properly via thecommunication control unit 111, such as for uploading subsidiary contentfiles to the subsidiary content server 2, for example.

The content creating processing unit 117 is a member for executingprocessing relating to editing using the editing material contents shownin FIG. 3, i.e., creating the content of contents serving as subsidiarycontents, in response to editing operations and the like performed bythe user. Accordingly, a user interface for editing operations and soforth is also realized by this content creating processing unit 117.

The subsidiary content file generating/interpreting processing unit 118first executes processing for generating the data of subsidiary contentfiles in which the tune contents serving as subsidiary contents createdby the content creating processing unit 117 are reflected. Also, in theevent of playing subsidiary contents, interpretation processing isexecuted regarding the playback control information in the subsidiarycontent file shown in FIG. 4, and a playback processing sequence isdetermined.

With the present embodiment, primary content files are encrypted andtransmitted from the primary content server 1. Also, encryption may beimplemented at the time of transmitting subsidiary content files fromthe subsidiary content server 2 to a user terminal device 4 fordownloading, and there are cases of transmitting with encryption in thecase of uploading subsidiary content data from a user terminal device 4to the subsidiary content server 2.

The encryption/decryption processing unit 119 executes processing fordecrypting encryption in the event that a primary content file or asubsidiary content file that has been encrypted is used for operationsfor playing, editing, or the like. Also, processing for executingencryption is executed to perform encryption on the subsidiary contentfile and transmit, if this is the case.

The player unit 120 is a member for executing, in the signal processingprocess for playing primary content files and subsidiary content filesas images, audio, and the like, predetermined signal processing whichshould be carried out at the digital signal format stage.

Now, a primary content file has, as the actual entity of data, actualcontent data which is video data or audio data or the like of apredetermined format, for reproducing the content of the contents.Accordingly, in the event of the player unit 120 playing a primarycontent file, the player unit 120 executes digital signal processing forplaying the video data or audio data or the like which is the actualcontent data. In the event that this primary content file has beensubjected to compression encoding, decoding processing corresponding tothis compression encoding is performed, and playback signal processingis performed regarding the digital video signals or digital audiosignals to be used.

Also, in the event of playing subsidiary contents, this executes playingprocessing serving as a sequencer, wherein the data portions of the usedprimary content files serving as source editing material contents aresequentially played following the sequence of playing processingdetermined by the aforementioned subsidiary content filegenerating/interpreting processing unit 118.

The recommended content related processing unit 121 realizes functionsfor recommending and presenting subsidiary contents to the user side, asdescribed later. Now, at the time of playing subsidiary contents, theresults of interpretation of the playback control information by thesubsidiary content file generating/interpreting processing unit 118 canbe reflected in an editing work screen which is a GUI provided by thecontent creating processing unit 117. That is to say, the contents ofplayback instructions indicated by the playback control information canbe displayed in a form which the user can recognized, on the editingwork screen. The user can confirm in detail how that subsidiary contentswas created, by viewing this. This means that how the creator createdthe subsidiary content can be obtained as accurate information. Forexample, in the case of general contents, in order for a general user toknow how the content has been created, only estimation can be made fromthe visual content or the acoustic content which can be actually playedand viewed or listened to, or the like.

In comparison with this, in the case of the present embodiment, how thesubsidiary content has been created can be comprehended in furtherdetail and more specifically. Sharing such subsidiary content amongusers can be expected to markedly improve the knowledge and skill ofusers using the content creating/sharing system according to the presentembodiment with regard to content creating. The system according to thepresent embodiment has extremely high entertainment nature and usagevalue for users with interest in content creating.

Next, a structural example of content files (primary content files,subsidiary content files) corresponding to the present embodiment willbe described with reference to FIGS. 12A through 14. First, FIG. 12Aillustrates a configuration example of a subsidiary content file.

As shown in the drawing, the subsidiary content file is configured of aheader and body (main portion). The header stores header informationmade up of a group of predetermined information items (metadata, addedinformation) relating to the subsidiary content file. The body storesactual data corresponding to what is in the content of the content file.Accordingly, in the case of a subsidiary content file, playback controlinformation is stored.

FIG. 12B illustrates a configuration example of a primary content file.The primary content file is also configured of a header and body, withthe header storing header information made up of a group ofpredetermined information items (metadata) corresponding to the primarycontent file. The body stores actual content data of a predeterminedformat as the actual data corresponding to the content of the contents.

Now, FIG. 13 shows an example of the content of header information whichthe header of the subsidiary content file stores. In FIG. 13, theinformation items (metadata items) making up the header information arepresent-content-related basic information, used source editing materialcontent information, used editing material content information, presentcontent usage agreement range information, and present contentgeneration information. The present-content-related basic information isbasic information items (metadata) relating to the present content file.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example of an information item (metadata item)group making up the present-content-related basic information. Here,content ID, title, creator, content type, play time, date-and-timecreated, jacket data, genre, and so on, are shown.

The content ID here is an identifier uniquely given to each presentsubsidiary content. Note that with the present embodiment these contentIDs are given to each content file by the content database managementunit 26 of the subsidiary content server 2, for example.

The title is information indicating the title given to the presentsubsidiary content file.

The creator is information indicating the creator of the presentsubsidiary content file (also can be called “writer”, “producer”,“artist”, or the like). Here, a name corresponding to the creator, and auser ID of the creator, are stored.

The content type is information indicating type, range, etc., of thecontent of the contents which the present subsidiary content file has,such as movies, tunes, photographs (still images), and so forth.

Play time is information indicating the total play time of the contentserving as the present subsidiary content file.

Date-and-time created is information indicating the date and time atwhich the present subsidiary content file was created.

There are cases wherein a content is provided with image data, such as ajacket of an album. Jacket data is such image data.

The genre is information indicating what the genre given to the contentof the contents serving as the present subsidiary content file.

Note that information items other than those listed here may be includedin the present-content-related basic information as well.

Used source editing material content information is informationindicating what the source editing material content (which is the usedsource editing material content) for playing the content of the contentsserving as the present subsidiary content file is. In other words, thisis information indicating which primary content like or subsidiarycontent file has had the actual content data thereof used for creatingthe present subsidiary content.

In correlation with FIGS. 5A through 5C, the primary content file shownas making up the subsidiary content newly created by editing processingis the above-described used source editing material content information.Accordingly, in the case of FIG. 5A, the primary contents A and B areshown in the usage primary contents information, in the case of FIG. 5B,the primary contents A, B, and C are shown, and in the case of FIG. 5C,the primary contents C, D, E, and F are shown.

Also, there may be a possibility that a certain primary content includedin the editing material content may not be used at all in the content ofthe contents serving as the subsidiary content created by editing theediting material content. With the example of the case in FIG. 5B, withthe new subsidiary content obtained by performing editing using theediting material contents A and C for example, there may be apossibility that the contents will be that which uses at least a part ofthe primary contents A and C, but not using the primary content D atall. In this case, only the primary content A and C are actual contentdata of primary contents for playing the subsidiary content, and theprimary content D is unused.

With regard to how the contents of the used source editing materialcontent information should be corresponding to such a case, there can beconceived one arrangement wherein the contents are such that only theprimary contents A and C are shown and the primary content D is notshown, based on the idea that only primary contents actually used forplaying the subsidiary content should be reflected.

As for another, there can be conceived another arrangement wherein thecontents are such that all of the primary contents A, C, and D areshown. That is to say, this is based on an idea wherein, in this case,while the primary content D is not actually used, there has been theinfluence of the content of the contents serving as the primary contentD to a certain extent in the process of creating the subsidiary content,and accordingly is equivalent to being used in an underlying manner. Inthis case, all primary contents which have been used even once up to thegeneration of the subsidiary content created this time are consequentlyincluded in the used source editing material.

As described later with reference to FIG. 15, the used source editingmaterial content information also includes metadata of predeterminedcontent, relating to the primary contents shown here.

Also, the used editing material content information is informationindicating which editing material contents (used editing materialcontents, directly-used contents) have been directly used for creatingthe subsidiary content file.

With correlation to FIGS. 5A through 5C, stored in the used editingmaterial content information of the new subsidiary content shown in FIG.5A is data indicating the actual primary content files serving as theediting material contents A and B. Also, in the case of the newsubsidiary content shown in FIG. 5B, data indicating the primary contentfile serving as the editing material content A, and the subsidiarycontent file serving as the editing material content C, is stored. Also,in the case of the new subsidiary content shown in FIG. 5C, dataindicating the subsidiary content files which are the serving as theediting material content C and D is stored as used editing materialinformation.

Note that, as shown in FIG. 15 which will be described later, the usedediting material content information also has attached information ofrelated predetermined contents for each of the editing material contentsshown here.

The present content usage agreement range information is information ofa usage agreement range set regarding the present content file. Thestructure should comply with the usage agreement range information ofthe configuration example described later with FIG. 15.

The present content generation information is information indicatingwhat generation the present subsidiary content is, as a content createdunder the environment of the content creating/sharing system accordingto the present embodiment.

FIG. 15 illustrates structural examples of the used source editingmaterial content information and used editing material contentinformation. Note that here, the used source editing material contentinformation and used editing material content information are shown ashaving a common basic structure. Accordingly, the content of FIG. 15 isshown with both the used source editing material content information andused editing material content information being shown in common.

As shown in this drawing, the used source editing material contentinformation/used editing material content information primarily are madeup of linked unit file information. Each unit file informationcorresponds to one used source editing material content information orused editing material content information.

Note that in order to simplify description, both used source editingmaterial content information and used editing material contentinformation will be referred to simply as “used content” in descriptionof this FIG. 15 if there is no particular distinction therebetween.

For unit file information, for example, the items of content ID,creator, title, generation, and usage agreement range information areprovided.

Here, content ID stores the content ID provided to the content file ofthe corresponding used content.

Creator stores the name of the writer of the corresponding used content,and the user ID of the creator.

Title indicates the tile of the corresponding used content as the namethereof.

The generation information item stores generation information. Thegeneration information is information indicating what generation contentthe content is. With the content creating/sharing system according tothe present embodiment, primary contents are defined explicitly asfirst-generation contents, while subsidiary contents are defined asbeing an N'th generation according to predetermined rules, correspondingto the generation of the editing material contents. Accordingly, in theevent that the used content information shown in FIG. 15 is used sourceediting material content information, information indicating firstgeneration will be stored in the time of generation information. Also,in the event that the used content information shown in FIG. 15 isediting material content information, information indicating thegeneration which is actually set in accordance with each used content(primary content or subsidiary content) corresponding to the unit fileinformation is stored.

The information of the usage agreement range (usage agreement rangeinformation) is formed of a group of one or more usage items 1 throughn.

The usage items 1 through n are assigned such that predetermined usagecontents related to editing (secondary use) of corresponding usagecontents correspond to each. Examples of usage contents to beappropriated to usage items which can be conceived include thefollowing.

-   -   Contents relating to whether or not secondary usage of the        present content is permitted    -   Contents relating to using contents of another creator from the        present contents, with regard to other contents to be used as        editing material    -   Contents relating to using contents of another album from that        to which present contents belong, with regard to other contents        to be used as editing material    -   Contents relating to using particular effects and special        effects    -   Contents relating to using particular plug-in modules    -   Extracting a part from the entire content and using as editing        material    -   Permission contents relating to the extracted actual content        data portion in the event of extracting a part from the entire        content and using as editing material    -   Number of usable generations (for example, in the event of        permitting use for two generations, i.e., up to the grandchild        generation (third generation), as primary content, child        subsidiary content using this primary content and grandchild        subsidiary content using the subsidiary content can be created,        but editing of the grandchild subsidiary content is not        permitted with regard to the portion using the corresponding        primary contents)    -   Contents relating to number and type of contents regarding which        secondary use can be performed in combination with the present        content

Information indicating contents relating to usage authorization set foreach usage item, beginning with permitted/not-permitted for example, isdescribed for each of the these usage items. As for the information ofthe usage agreement range, generalizing the usage setting contentsdescribed for each of these usage items indicates the usage agreementrange for the corresponding usage content.

With regard to the content of the header information of the primarycontent file, particular description by way of reference to the drawingswill be omitted, and it should be noted that it is sufficient to haveinformation defining the primary content file as being used. However,with the present embodiment, an arrangement wherein the headerinformation of the primary content files have a common structure withthose of the subsidiary content files can be considered to beappropriate. With such a primary content file header informationstructure, the header structure is standardized between primary contentsand subsidiary contents, and which can be expected to lead to improvedefficiency in content file management with the content creating/sharingsystem according to the present embodiment. One example thereof is thatthe primary content files will have present content usage agreementrange information, so a usage agreement range which more accuratelyreflects the decisions and ideas of the writers can be set of theprimary contents which are first-generation contents.

It should be noted though, that primary content files are not createdsecondarily using other contents. Accordingly, no meaningful informationhas to be stored regarding the used source editing material contentinformation and used editing material content information shown in FIG.16, in the header of the primary content files, for example.

Next, playback control information in subsidiary content files will bedescribed. Playback control information is unit information made updescribing a processing sequence for playing the content of contentsserving as current subsidiary content, in a predetermined language,unlike actual content data. Elements of the description contents formingthis playback control information include, for example, first, adescription indicating primary content serving as actual content dataused for playback, description indicating a data portion to be used foractual playing subsidiary content from the actual content data servingas this primary content, and description indicating the time for playingthis data portion. Also, description for applying effects or specialeffects, such as fade-in, fade-out, overlap, equalizing (toneadjustment), playback speed rate, reverberation, delay, and so forth,for example, is performed.

FIG. 16 illustrates an example of the content of playback controlinformation. In this drawing, the description portions between thebrackets [ ] indicate the playback control content for one primary usagecontent (source editing material content).

An example of playback control content of a usage primary content unitshown in FIG. 16 will be described. First, as for the playback controlcontent as unit of used content shown at the head in the drawing,[file_id=AAAAAA; time=00:00-00:10; position=vv-zz] is described. Thisspecifies that the used content is specified by the content ID=AAAAAA(the descriptor of file_id here), and that the play time of the currentsubsidiary content using this usage content is 00:00 (start time)—00:10(play time 10 seconds), and that the data section (section of actualcontent data) of the usage content used during this play time is a rangecorresponding to address vv through address zz.

For the playback control content of the subsequent used content unit,[file_id=AAAAAA; time=00:10-00:15; position=ss−tt] is described. Thisspecifies that the usage content is specified by the content ID=AAAAAA,and that the play time of the current subsidiary content using thisusage content is 00:10-00:15, and that the data section of the usagecontent used during this play time is a range corresponding to addressss through address tt.

For the playback control content of the subsequent used content unit,[file_id=BBBBBB; time=00:15-00:20; position=pp−uu] is described. Thisspecifies that the usage content is specified by the content ID=BBBBBB,and that the play time of the current subsidiary content using thisusage content is 00:15-00:20, and that the data section of the usagecontent used during this play time is a range corresponding to addresspp through address uu.

For example, at the time of playback of the subsidiary content file, theplayer unit 120 of the content creating/sharing application 100according to the present embodiment thus sequentially interprets theplayback control contents of the usage content units in the brackets [], and executes actual playback control in accordance with theinterpretation results, thereby playing and outputting the subsidiarycontent as video signals, audio signals, and so forth.

Next, an example of procedures relating to the primary processingrelating to editing and creating of subsidiary contents will bedescribed with reference to the flowcharts in FIGS. 17 and 18. Note thatthe processing shown in FIGS. 17 and 18 is realized by execution of aprogram serving as the content managing/creating tool 101 in the contentcreating/sharing application 100, for example.

Now, let us say that for example, a user of a user terminal device 4 hasactivated the content managing/creating tool 101 of the contentcreating/sharing application 100 and is ready to edit subsidiarycontent. Let us say that operations are performed such that content touse as material for creating subsidiary content is searched, and this isregistered (finalized) as editing material content. In accordance withthis, the processing shown in FIG. 17 is executed by the contentcreating processing unit 117 of the content managing/creating tool 101.

In FIG. 17, first, in step S101, taking in of data of content registeredas editing material content is executed. Note that in the event that theregistered editing material content is a primary content, the data ofthe primary content file corresponding thereto is taken in, and in theevent of a subsidiary content, the data of a subsidiary content filecorresponding thereto is taken in.

In step S102, reading in of information of the usage agreement range isfurther executed from the data taken in by the above step S101. Thus,various contents relating to the usage agreement set with regard to thecontent registered this time as editing material content is recognizedbased on the content of the usage items 1 through n in the usageagreement range information. Accordingly, in the following step S103,the contents of the usage agreement recognized in correspondence withthe above step S102 is set so as to be reflected on a user interface(UI) for subsidiary content editing. Due to this processing, the contentcreating processing unit 117 operates such that editing operations ofcontent exceeding the usage agreement range set in the editing materialcontent beforehand are unavailable.

FIG. 18 illustrates a basic processing procedure example relating togenerating of a subsidiary content file which is the actual entity ofdata serving as the subsidiary content. The processing shown in thisdrawing is also realized by the CPU 41 executing a program serving asthe content managing/creating tool 101, for example.

Here, first in step S201, appropriate editing processing in accordancewith operation input for editing is executed. For example, the contentcreating processing unit 117 provides a GUI (Graphical User Interface)for the user to perform editing operations for creating subsidiarycontent, with the program thereof. The user performs editing operationsfor creating subsidiary content using this GUI, and the processing instep S201 is executed in accordance with this operation.

In the process of performing editing processing as described above, upondetermination being made in step S202 that operations have beenperformed for saving the editing results so far, the flow proceeds tostep S203. In step S203, a subsidiary content file corresponding to thecontent of contents obtained by the editing results so far is generated.At the time of generating the subsidiary content file, headerinformation and playback control information reflecting the results ofediting so far are generated, and these are combined to generate thefile.

Control is executed in step S204 so as to save this subsidiary contentfile created as described above in an appropriate directory in the HDD48 for example. Upon the procedure of step S204 having ended, the flowreturns to step S201.

Note that when creating the subsidiary content file, the content of thepresent content usage agreement range information is also generated. Asfor how to set the contents of the present content usage agreement rangeinformation, an arrangement may be conceived to automatically set(contents for each usage item) following predetermined rules, in a rangenot exceeding a minimum determined summarizing the usage agreement rangeinformation for each primary content which is the source editingmaterial, for example. Also, an arrangement may be conceived forsettings are made corresponding to specification operations relating tothe contents of the present content usage agreement range informationwhich the user has performed, so that the intent of the user isreflected. However, even in the event of setting in accordance with useroperations in this way, setting is performed in a range not exceeding aminimum determined summarizing the usage agreement range information foreach primary content which is the source editing material, so thatsetting of usage agreement range (contents for each usage item)exceeding this is unavailable.

Note that while not shown in the drawing here, the processing shown inthis drawing is left and the flow transits to other processing, inresponse to operations being performed to close the GUI screen forcreating subsidiary content for example, or the like.

Next, a processing procedure example relating to uploading of subsidiarycontent by the user terminal device 4, and a processing procedureexample of the subsidiary content server 2 in accordance with thisuploading, will be described with reference to the flowchart in FIG. 19.The processing at the user terminal device 4 side in the drawing isrealized primarily by programs serving as the subsidiary contentmanaging processing unit 115 and content transfer processing unit 116.The processing at the subsidiary content server 2 is executed by themembers shown in FIG. 7 operating in cooperation, but in reality, can beviewed as being realized by the computer system (CPU) making up thesubsidiary content server 2 executing programs.

The user terminal device 4 side in step S301 is awaiting obtaining of acommand instructing uploading of a subsidiary content file.

Now, let us say that the user selects, as an operation as to the GUIprovided by the content managing/creating tool 101, one or moresubsidiary contents regarding which uploading is desired, and performsan upload execution operation. In response to this upload executionoperation, a command is generated which instructs uploading of thesubsidiary content file corresponding to the subsidiary content selectedat the GUI, and the flow proceeds to step S302.

Note that the subsidiary content for this upload is subsidiary contentcreated by the content creating/sharing application 100 and stored inthe HDD 48 as an application file of the content creating/sharingapplication 100.

In step S302, the subsidiary content regarding which uploading has beenspecified, i.e., the subsidiary content file, is read in from thedirectory where it is stored. In the following step S303, control isexecuted such that the data of the subsidiary content file which hasbeen read in is transmitted and output to the subsidiary content server2 via network along with an upload request.

The subsidiary content server 2 is standing by in step S401 forreception of an upload request, and upon the upload request beingreceived, the procedures from S402 and on are executed. Note that inorder to actually transition to step S402 after receiving an uploadrequest, confirmation is made that this is a request from a valid user,by way of authentication processing for example, but such processingprocedures are omitted here.

In step S402, a saving location (URL) for the subsidiary content filereceived along with the upload request is set.

In step S403, communication processing for notifying the saving locationof the subsidiary content file set in step S402 is performed as to theuser terminal device 4 which is the originator of the upload requestthis time.

At the user terminal device 4 side which has performed in upload requestin step S303 is awaiting reception of information of the saving locationin step S304. Upon receiving information of the saving location, in stepS305 information of the received saving location (URL) is saved in anappropriate directory. Thus, hereafter, the information of the savinglocation of the subsidiary content can be called up by performing apredetermined operation as to the content managing/creating tool 101. Inthe event that the saving location is a URL, a text string as the URLcan be displayed, for example, depending on the call operation.

The flowchart in FIG. 20 illustrates a processing procedure examplerelating to downloading of the subsidiary content by the user terminaldevice 4, and a processing procedure example at the subsidiary contentserver 2 corresponding thereto. The processing at the user terminaldevice 4 side in the drawing as well is primarily realized by programsserving as the subsidiary content managing processing unit 115 andcontent transfer processing unit 116.

First, in step S501, the user terminal device 4 side is awaitingobtaining of a command instructing downloading of a subsidiary contentfile. Here, let us say that for example, the user accesses a subsidiarycontent download site (Web site) provided by the subsidiary contentserver 2 for download of the subsidiary content, as an operation as tothe content managing/creating tool 101, and causes display of a list ofdownloadable (shared) subsidiary contents. Further, let us say that theuser selects one or more subsidiary contents which the user desires todownload from the list, and performs operations for executingdownloading. In response to this, a positive determination result willbe obtained in step S501, and the flow proceeds to step S502.

In step S502, a download request is transmitted to the subsidiarycontent server 2 in response to a download instructing having beenobtained. Note that as for this download request, information equivalentto specifying the directory (saving location) of the subsidiary contentselected at the time of operation of the download execution instructionfor example, is also included. Note that an arrangement may be conceivedwherein instead of the saving location, a download request is madespecifying the content ID of the subsidiary content file which is theactual entity of the subsidiary content and so forth, for example.

The subsidiary content server 2 is awaiting for a download request to bereceived in step S601, and upon an download request being received,executes the procedures in step S602. Note that in order to actuallytransition to step S602 after receiving a download request as well,authentication processing and the like transpires, but such processingprocedures are omitted here as well.

In step S602, the subsidiary content database 22 a of the storage unit22 is accessed and the specified subsidiary content file is searchedfor, and the searched subsidiary content file is transmitted to therequesting user terminal device 4.

The user terminal device 4 which has transmitted the download request instep S502 awaits in step S503 for the subsidiary content file accordingto the download request to be received. Upon determining that thesubsidiary content file has been received, in step S504, the receivedsubsidiary content file is saved and managed in an appropriatedirectory.

The flowchart in FIG. 21 illustrates a processing procedure example ofthe user terminal device 4 to play the subsidiary content obtained bydownloading (saved in HDD 48), and the processing of the user terminaldevice 4 side in this drawing is realized by programs primarily servingas the subsidiary content managing processing unit 115,encryption/decryption processing unit 119, and player unit 120.

First, in step S701, obtaining of a playback start instruction regardingthe subsidiary content file saved in the HDD 48 is awaited. Now, let ussay that for example, as an operation as to the GUI provided by thesubsidiary content managing processing unit 115, one subsidiary contentis selected from the subsidiary contents saved in the HDD 48, and aninstruction is given to start playing. In response to this, a positivedetermination result is obtained in step S701, and the flow proceeds tostep S702.

In step S702, the subsidiary content file corresponding to the specifiedsubsidiary content is read in from the HDD 48. Here, the subsidiarycontent data obtained by downloading is saved in the HDD 48 with theencryption at the time of transfer left. Accordingly, in the next stepS703, processing for decrypting the read in subsidiary content data isexecuted by the encryption/decryption processing unit 119.

In step S704, determination is made regarding whether or not theencryption decrypting processing in the above step S703 has beensuccessful.

For example, in the event that the subsidiary content data regardingwhich starting of playing has been specified this time in step S701 hasbeen legitimately downloaded from the content server 2, the decryptingprocessing in step S703 will be successful and proper subsidiary contentdata will be restored.

Conversely, in the event that the subsidiary content data has beenobtained by some way other than downloading from the subsidiary contentserver 2 for example, either encryption has been performed with anothermethod or algorithm, or no encryption has been performed. In this case,depending on the decrypting processing in step S703, either propersubsidiary content data is not restorable, or decrypting processing isinapplicable. That is to say, as for the results of the decryptingprocessing in step S703, this can be viewed as failing, including casesthat decrypting processing is inapplicable.

In the event that positive determination results have been obtained thatthe decrypting processing has been successful in step S704, the flowproceeds to step S705, and playback regarding the subsidiary content isstarted. That is to say, the generating/interpreting processing unit 118interprets the playback control information to be played and determinesa playing sequence, and controls the playback signal processing of theplayer unit 120 such that the actual content data portion of the primarycontent is sequentially played following the playing sequence.

Conversely, in the event that a negative decryption result has beenobtained in step S704 that the decrypting processing has failed, theflow proceeds to step S706, and error handling processing is executed.As for this error handling processing, first, playback controlprocessing regarding the subsidiary content regarding which playback hasbeen specified this time is kept from being started, and thereupon forexample, control processing for notifying on a GUI that the subsidiarycontent regarding which playback has been specified this time isunauthorized and unplayable, and so forth, is executed.

By such processing being executed for example, with the presentembodiment, only subsidiary content information externally obtainedwhich has been legitimately downloaded and obtained from the subsidiarycontent server 2 is played at the user terminal device 4, whereby thecopyright of the primary content or subsidiary content is fullyprotected.

Note that as for an arrangement for playing and outputting onlysubsidiary content legitimately downloaded from the subsidiary contentserver 2, other arrangements can be conceived. For example, aconfiguration may be conceived wherein encryption is decryptedbeforehand at the point of the user terminal device 4 receiving andobtaining as a download, and is stored in the HDD 48 with the decryptionresult information attached thereto, and at the time of playing, theattached information of the decryption results is referred to, so as tomake determination regarding whether or not to play the subsidiarycontent. Also, an arrangement may be made wherein a special codeindicating that transmission has been made for downloading is embeddedin the subsidiary content as processing at the subsidiary content server2 side at the time of transmission from the subsidiary content server 2,and at the time of playing, presence/absence of this code, and thecontent thereof and so forth is confirmed at the user terminal device 4side, so as to determine whether or not to start playing.

Now, with a content creating/sharing system such as with the presentembodiment, the number of subsidiary contents shared among users, i.e.,the number of subsidiary content files which the subsidiary contentserver 2 stores and manages, can be massive.

Also, as described earlier, with the content creating/sharing systemaccording to the present embodiment, even if there is no notificationfor introducing subsidiary contents from users who are friends, or thelike, as described above, the download site of the subsidiary contentserve can be accessed and desired subsidiary contents can be downloaded.

Taking such into consideration, it can be said that with the contentcreating/sharing system according to the present embodiment, howefficiently the user is going to be able to find suitable subsidiarycontents from the massive number of subsidiary contents is important.

Accordingly, the content creating/sharing system according to thepresent embodiment aims to be able to efficiently select subsidiarycontents suitable and appropriate for each user, and to be able topresent these to the user. Additionally, a configuration which is asefficient as possible in reality is proposed in light of the currentlevel of technology.

Note that to “present subsidiary contents suitable and appropriate foreach user” according to the present embodiment means to recommendsubsidiary content which would have value for listening/viewing for thatuser. That is to say, the following description can be said to beregarding a configuration for recommending subsidiary contents suitableof the user for each user. Also, in light of this, we will also so referto subsidiary contents selected as being suitable of a certain user as“recommended contents”.

FIG. 22 illustrates an example of processing performed at the contentcreating/sharing system related to recommendation of subsidiarycontents. Here, the player unit 120 (content managing/creating tool 101)at the user terminal device 4, the communication tool 102, recommendedcontent related processing unit 121 (content managing/creating tool101), and subsidiary content server 2 are shown as primary entitiesexecuting processing here.

In order to facilitate subsequent description, the overview of theoperation of subsidiary content recommendation obtained by theprocessing shown in the drawing will be described. First, as for thestate at the user terminal device 4, the communication tool 102 isarranged to operate when the player unit 120 is activated and a primarycontent is being played. In this state, the user terminal device 4 ofwhich the communication tool 102 is the primary entity receives a listof recommended contents extracted from the subsidiary content server 2in relation to the primary content currently being played at the playerunit 120, and uses the data of this list to display and presentrecommended contents on the GUI screen with the communication tool 102.

Also, a primary content which is being played at the player unit 120 andserves as a key (extracting condition/search condition) for extracting(searching) the recommended contents as described above, will also bereferred to as a “key primary content”.

First, in step S801 in FIG. 22, we will say that the player unit 120 isexecuting processing of playing output of a certain primary content ofthe primary contents which the user of the user terminal device 4 can beviewed as holding.

Note that “holding” or “possessing” of a content by a user, as usedhere, refers in one sense to a state wherein a primary content file isstored and managed in a state where it can be viewed as being local asto the content creating/sharing application 100 (user terminal device 4)of the user, for example. Also, even if the primary content file is notlocally existing, but existing on a server or the like, and can beaccessed and played by the content creating/sharing application 100, forexample, such a primary content file can be viewed as the user“holding”. Examples of such primary contents include those which can bestreamed or downloaded from a server under a content viewing/listeningcontract such as a subscription, and locally saved. This can also besaid to be contents which the user does not have to pay for separatelyat the time of starting playing, but rather which the user has the rightto play.

In a state wherein a primary content is being played at the player unit120 in step S801 above, we will say that the communication tool 102 hasalso been activated and is running. In this state, as shown as stepS802, the communication tool 102 makes a notification request to theplayer unit 120 to receive notification of what the primary contentcurrently being played at the player unit 120 is, i.e., what the keyprimary content is.

Upon receiving he above notification request in step S803, the playerunit 120 returns a content ID for example, as that identifying andindicating the key primary content, to the communication tool 102, as aresponse thereto.

The communication tool 102 which has received the content ID of the keyprimary content in response to step S803 executes processing in stepS804 for requesting a recommended content list from the subsidiarycontent server 2. The recommended content list requested here is calledunit information where recommended contents corresponding to the primarycontent currently being played in accordance with step S801 is shown.The processing of this step S804 transmits data serving as a recommendedcontent list request to the subsidiary content server 2 by a programserving as the communication tool 102, from the user terminal device 4via the network. Also, at the time of transmitting this recommendedcontent list request, the content ID there of is embedded in the operandthereof for example, as information for identifying the key primarycontent notified in step S803.

Note that the content ID of the key primary content exchanged in theprocessing in steps S803 and S804 is also referred to as “key contentID”.

The subsidiary content server 2 which has received the recommendedcontent list request in step S804 executes processing for extracting therecommended contents in step S805, and executes processing for creatinga recommended content list (recommended content information) which isthe content reflecting the extraction results of the recommendedcontents. Note that the processing in step S805 can be viewed as beingexecuted primarily by the recommended content processing unit 25 incorrelation with FIG. 7.

Now, an example of recommended content extracting processing which therecommended content related processing unit 121 executes in the stepS805 will be described.

First, the basic concept of recommended contents extracting processinghere will be described with reference to FIG. 23. Note that in thefollowing description primary contents which the user of the userterminal device 4 is deemed to hold will be called “held primarycontents”. Also, a user who is playing a primary content with the userterminal device 4 (player unit 120) in FIG. 22 is a user who is anobject of recommendation of subsidiary contents. This user will becalled a “recommendation-receiving user”.

Looking at the Venn diagram shown in FIG. 23, the set A is a set whichtakes as components thereof all subsidiary contents stored in thesubsidiary content server 2 as the subsidiary content database 22 a.

The set B is a set which takes as components thereof, of the subsidiarycontents belonging to set A (subsidiary contents stored at thesubsidiary content 2), the subsidiary contents including key primarycontents used as source editing material (used source editing materialcontents). An idea implemented in this case is that, of the subsidiarycontents stored in subsidiary content server 2, those with user-heldprimary contents as source editing material have the highest value ofrecommendation to the user of the held primary contents.

The reason is thus.

First, the held primary contents of a recommendation-receiving user aremost likely a collection made in accordance with the preferences andtastes of the recommendation-receiving user. This means that we canestimate that the more held primary contents a subsidiary content has asthe source editing material contents thereof, the more interest therecommendation-receiving user will be likely to have in the subsidiarycontent, and also most likely match the tastes thereof.

Also, with the present embodiment, at the time of the user obtainingprimary contents by downloading or the like, the user pays for thecontents as a rule. Held primary contents are contents which the userhas already obtained. Accordingly, if held primary contents are includedin the source editing materials, the fewer primary contents the user hasto purchase, meaning that the cost is lower for the user.

Accordingly, with the present embodiment, we will say that subsidiarycontents using one or more held primary contents as the source editingmaterial contents will be extracted (selected) as recommended contents.

In correlation with FIG. 23, subsidiary contents belonging to set B willbe extracted as recommended contents.

On the other hand, as for subsidiary contents of the set A which are acomplement to set B, i.e., subsidiary contents which do not use even oneheld primary content as source editing material content are removed fromthe recommended contents. We can estimate that regarding suchrecommended contents, the recommendation-receiving user will likely havelittle interest in such a subsidiary content, and the subsidiary contentwill also likely not match the tastes of the recommendation-receivinguser. Moreover, such subsidiary contents will cost the user more.

In step S805 in FIG. 22, a specific example of processing for extractingsubsidiary contents belonging to set B in FIG. 23 above as recommendedcontents is as follows.

That is to say, the recommended content processing unit 25 searches theused source editing material content information for a subsidiarycontent including the key content ID obtained in step S804, from thesubsidiary contents registered in the subsidiary content database 22 a.

The used source editing material content information indicates thecontent ID of the primary content serving as the source editing materialof the present subsidiary content i.e., for playing. Accordingly,including a key content ID in the used source editing material contentinformation means that key primary content, i.e., the primary contentcurrently being played at the player unit 120, is included as the sourceediting material of the present subsidiary content. That is to say,subsidiary contents belonging to the set B in FIG. 23 are extracted as aresult.

Next, the recommended content processing unit 25 creates a recommendedcontent list which is content information indicating the subsidiarycontents extracted as recommended contents as described above in thesame step S805.

Note that the recommended content list can be created from metadata ofpredetermined definitions for each extracted subsidiary content, forexample. At this time, the metadata for each subsidiary content can beobtained based on the header information in the subsidiary content file,for example.

FIG. 24 shows a schematic example of the structure of a recommendedcontent list. With the recommended content list in this case, headerinformation in the subsidiary content file is extracted for eachextracted recommended content 1 through n, and these are arrayed. Theheader information can be viewed as being a set of metadata relating tothe subsidiary contents corresponding to the header information, so thisrecommended content list also can be said to have a structure as ametadata group for each extracted recommended content.

The recommended content list created as described above is transmittedto the requesting user terminal device 4 via the network 5 in step S806,under the control of the control unit 21, for example. The user terminaldevice 4 in this case receives data of the received recommended contentlist with the communication tool 102.

Now, the recommended content list at the stage of having been receivedin step S806 by the communication tool 102 only shows subsidiarycontents matching the recommended contents, with no priority order,i.e., recommendation order, for recommendation, being shown.

For example, if recommended contents can be presented to the user alongwith an appropriately-set recommendation order thereof, the user will beable to efficiently narrow down the presented recommended contents arecompared with a case wherein recommended contents are presented withoutany recommendation order set.

Accordingly, in response to having received the data of the recommendedcontent list, the communication tool 102 performs a recommendation ordersetting request to the recommended content related processing unit 121,as shown in step S807. At the time of this recommendation order settingrequest, the communication tool 102 for example hands the data of therecommended content list obtained in step S806 to the recommendedcontent related processing unit 121.

In step S808, in response to the recommendation order setting request,the recommended content related processing unit 121 first sets arecommendation order regarding the subsidiary contents registered in therecommended content list, and next reflects the set recommendation orderin the recommended content list.

While various algorithms may be conceived for setting the recommendationorder in step S808, here, the recommendation order is set based on theusage state (inclusion state) of the held primary contents of therecommendation-receiving user in the recommended contents (subsidiarycontents).

As described earlier with FIG. 23, regarding subsidiary contents havingthe nature of secondary creations, an idea can be employed that “thosewith held primary contents of the recommendation-receiving user assource editing material have high value of recommendation to therecommendation-receiving user”. Based on this idea, we can say that“those using more with held primary contents of therecommendation-receiving user as source editing material have highervalue of recommendation to the recommendation-receiving user”.

FIG. 25 illustrates a flowchart of an example of processing proceduresin step S808 for setting recommendation order based on the usage state(inclusion state) of held primary contents of therecommendation-receiving user, in accordance with the above idea. InFIG. 25, in step S901 the recommended content related processing unit121 first performs initialization by substituting 1 into the variable nindicating the No. of recommended contents. Note that the No. assignedas the variable n here is given to the subsidiary contents registered inthe recommended content list for the sake of convenience, and hasnothing to do with the recommendation order.

In step S902, the recommended content related processing unit 121 readsin used source editing material content information, which is one of themetadata of the n'th recommended content (recommended content n), fromthe recommended content list. Note that the used source editing materialcontent information is information originally included in the headerinformation of the subsidiary content, and has the content describedwith FIG. 15, for example. That is to say, the recommended content listin this case includes the used source editing material contentinformation as metadata for each subsidiary content.

In step S903, the recommended content related processing unit 121identifies the source editing material content (primary content) used inthe recommended content n, by referring to the used source editingmaterial content information read in the step S902. Note that the midentified source editing material contents are denoted by numerals 1through m following a predetermined rule in this case as well.

Steps S904 and S905 are initialization processing for steps S906 throughS909. In step S904, 1 is substituted into the variable m indicating theNo. of the source editing material contents identified in step S903. Instep S905, 0 is substituted into the variable Fn representing the numberof lacking contents for the recommended contents n.

Note that “lacking contents” here refers to primary contents (sourceediting material contents) which have to be had for playing thesubsidiary contents as recommended contents, which are not held primarycontents of the recommendation-receiving user.

Also, the number of lacking contents can be said to represent how muchthe held primary contents are used (included) in the primary contentsserving as source editing material (usage state/inclusion state).

For example, the content managing/creating tool 101 manages the heldprimary contents of the corresponding user. Due to this management, thecontent ID of each held primary content can be found out. Also, thismanagement can be executed by the primary content managing processingunit 113, for example, in correlation with FIG. 11.

Alternatively, a configuration can be conceived wherein this is managedby the player unit 120 as a primary content which can be played byitself.

In step S906, the recommended content related processing unit 121determines whether or not the primary content which is the sourceediting material content m is included in the held primary contents.This can be performed by searching through the content IDs of the heldprimary contents for a content ID matching that indicated by the sourceediting material content m. In step S906, if a content ID is found inthe held primary contents matching the content ID indicating the sourceediting material content m, a positive determination result is obtained,and if not found, a negative determination result is obtained.

In the event that a positive determination result is obtained in stepS906, the step S907 is skipped and the flow advances to step S908.

Conversely, in the event that a negative determination result isobtained, the variable Fn is incremented in step S907 and the flowproceeds to step S908.

In step S908, the recommended content related processing unit 121determines whether or not the current variable m has reached the maximumvalue or higher. The maximum value of the variable m is the number ofsource editing material contents identified in step S903.

In the event that a negative result is obtained in step S908, this meansthat there remain source editing material contents regarding whichdetermination has to be made regarding whether or not included in theheld primary contents, so the variable m is incremented in step S909 andthe flow returns to step S906. Accordingly, determination is made instep S906 regarding the source editing material contents 1 through m,and in the event that a negative editing result is obtained here, thevariable Fn is incremented.

As a result of determination being performed in step S906 regarding allsource editing material contents 1 through m, a positive determinationresult is obtained in step S908, and the flow proceeds to step S910. Inthe event that a positive determination result is obtained in step S908,this finalizes the number of lacking contents Fn regarding therecommended contents n.

In step S910, determination is made regarding whether the variable n hasreached the maximum value or higher. In the event that a negativedetermination result is obtained here, this means that there arerecommended contents remaining regarding which the number of lackingcontents has not yet been obtained. In this case, the variable n isincremented in step S911 and the flow returns to step S902.

Accordingly, the number of lacking contents is obtained for each of therecommended contents 1 through n. Upon the number of lacking contentshaving been obtained for all of the recommended contents 1 through n, apositive determination result is obtained in step S910, and the flowadvances to step S912.

Upon reaching step S912, the number of lacking contents F1 through Fnfor the recommended contents 1 through n have already been obtained.Accordingly, in step S912, a recommendation order is set among therecommended contents 1 through n, based on the number of lackingcontents F1 through Fn. Various ideas can be conceived regarding how toset the recommendation order using number of the lacking contents F1through Fn, so description of specific examples will be omitted here. Asa basic rule, subsidiary contents with fewer lacking contents are setwith a higher recommendation order.

Note that with the processing in step S903, description has been madethat the recommendation order is to be set based simply on the number oflacking contents, but an arrangement may be conceived wherein thepercentage or ratio of lacking contents in the primary contents used asthe source editing material in the subsidiary contents is set as therecommendation order. That is to say, regarding the recommendation orderbeing set based on the usage state of the held primary contents assource editing material, specific algorithms thereof are not restrictedto that in FIG. 25.

Returning to FIG. 22, if we say that the recommendation order accordingto FIG. 25 has been set as step S808 for example, the recommendedcontent related processing unit 121 recreates the recommended contentlist so a to reflect the setting results of the recommendation order inthe same step S808. As for this processing, one conceivable idea is tore-sort the array order of subsidiary contents set in the recommendedcontent list so far, in accordance with the recommendation order.Another idea that can be conceived is to newly embed data indicating therecommendation order in metadata for each subsidiary content in therecommended content list.

In step S809, the recommended content related processing unit 121returns the recommended content list recreated to the content reflectingthe recommendation order, to the communication tool 102 as a response tothe recommendation order setting request.

The communication tool 102 uses the recommended content list received instep S809 above and executes processing for display output (presenting)of an image presenting the recommended contents according to apredetermined format, as the processing of step S810. At this time, therecommended contents are presented such that the set recommendationorder is reflected.

Note that while the recommendation order is described as being set atthe user terminal device 4 side in FIG. 22 for example, an arrangementcan be conceived where such processing is also performed at the server(subsidiary content server 2) side. According to this configuration, arecommended content list in which the recommendation order has beenreflected can be created at the server side.

However, attempting to set the recommendation order at the server sideas well, for example, obtaining the number of lacking contents meansthat information indicating the breakdown of the held primary contentsfor each user (held primary content information) to be stored at theserver side has to be had. Alternatively, the information indicating thebreakdown of the held primary contents has to be transmitted from theuser terminal device 4 each time recommendation order setting is to beperformed at the server side.

With consideration to reality, in the case of the former, held primarycontent information for each of a great number of users will be storedand managed at the server side, so the processing at the serve side maybecome slow. Also, in the case of the later, the held primary contentinformation is exchanged over the network each time a recommendedcontent list has to be created, but it is conceivable that there is aconsiderable number of users who hold primary contents in the thousandsor tens of thousands. The size of held primary content information forsuch users will be considerable, which would lend to traffic congestion.Also, in either case, the breakdown of held primary contents is known tothe server side (i.e., a third party), and some users most likely willdislike this.

Conversely, with the case of the present embodiment, all that has to bedone at the subsidiary content server 2 side is to extract recommendedcontents based on the content ID of the primary content currently beingplayed, and create a recommended content list, with the recommendationorder setting being performed locally, i.e., at the user terminal device4 side.

Accordingly, no held primary content information has to be held at theserver side, so the processing load of the server side is alleviated,and traffic congestion is irrelevant. Also, the breakdown of the heldprimary contents is not comprehended at the server side.

Opposite to the case in FIG. 22, a configuration can be conceivedwherein, for example, the content IDs for all held primary contents aretransmitted from the user terminal device 4 side, with the subsidiarycontent server 2 creating a recommended content list from subsidiarycontents extracted with regard to all held primary contents.

However, in this case, it can be conceived that the number of subsidiarycontents to be presented as recommended contents will be very great.Also, it is unlikely that the user is equally fond of all held primarycontents, so there is a higher possibility that subsidiary contentswhich actually have no value of recommendation are extracted asrecommended contents as well.

Also, the processing for extracting recommended contents correspondingto all held primary contents also will be very slow processing,particularly in the event that the total of held primary contents isvery great.

Accordingly, with the present embodiment, the above-described trouble isavoided by restricting the key for extracting the recommended contentsto the one primary content being played at the user terminal device 4,as shown in FIG. 22.

Thus, with the present embodiment, it can be said that a configurationhas been made wherein operations relating to content recommendation canbe obtained as efficiently as possible, taking into realistic situationssuch as the processing capability of current computer systems, the trendof users regarding privacy, and so forth.

Also, the recommendation order can be set based on conditions other thanthe number of lacking contents for example, or may be set based on thenumber of lacking contents and one or more other conditions.

While conditions other than the number of lacking contents are notrestricted in particular, a conceivable arrangement is to use a playinghistory or rating (favorite rating) of the recommendation-receiving userregarding the held primary contents included in the source editingmaterial of the recommended contents.

The reason is that using information such as playing history or theratings or the like allows how fond the user is of that content to benumerically quantified. It can be said that the more the user is fond ofa certain held primary content, the greater the value for recommendationis for recommended contents including that held primary content as thesource editing material.

Also, in a case of setting the recommendation order by such multipleconditions, recommendation order settings based on certain particularconditions may be performed at the subsidiary content server 2 side.That is to say, the recommendation order settings can be dispersedbetween the user terminal device 4 side and the server side. In thiscase, the recommendation orders set for each condition can be integratedat the user terminal device 4 for example, so as to obtain a finalrecommendation order.

In the processing for subsidiary content recommendation shown in FIG. 22above, the content ID of the primary content being played (key primarycontent) is transmitted from the user terminal device 4 side to thesubsidiary content server 2 as a key for extracting recommendedcontents. In response to this, a recommended content list made up of ametadata group of recommended contents is returned from the subsidiarycontent server 2 to the user terminal device 4.

The content ID is an identifier for identifying a content, and in lightof this, the content ID can be said to be a type of metadata regardingthe content, in a broad sense of the term. Thus, we can say that withthe processing shown in FIG. 22, in response to a content ID which ismetadata being handed to the subsidiary content server 2, data of therecommended content list which is also metadata, is returned. That is tosay, with the processing in FIG. 22, no actual content data is exchangedbetween the user terminal device 4 and the subsidiary content server 2,and this can be viewed as exchanging only metadata.

Accordingly, next, an example of subsidiary content recommendationaggressively employing exchange of metadata will be described as amodification. For example, with the configuration for subsidiary contentrecommendation described earlier with FIG. 22, a system configurationhas been described wherein recommended contents are extracted with theidentification information, i.e., content ID, identifying what theprimary content being played at the user terminal device 4 side (playerunit 120) is, as a key.

Conversely, with the present modification, the key for extractingrecommended contents is metadata of the content being played at the userterminal device 4 side (player unit 120). That is to say, the contentdescribed in the items defined as metadata (metadata items) is taken asthe key.

As one specific example, if we say that there is a metadata item definedas “artist (creator) name”, and a content of “Tokkyo Taro” is describedin this metadata item, this “Tokkyo Taro” can be taken as the key. Notethat “metadata” in this modification is metadata in the narrow sense ofthe term, as compared with the content ID serving as the key above, forexample. Also, in this modification, content correlated with themetadata serving as a key may be either primary content or subsidiarycontent.

FIG. 26 illustrates processing executed at the content creating/sharingsystem for recommending subsidiary contents, as a modification. Here aswell, the player unit 120 (content managing/creating tool 101) at theuser terminal device 4, the communication tool 102, recommended contentrelated processing unit 121 (content managing/creating tool 101), andsubsidiary content server 2 are shown as primary entities executingprocessing here.

Note that in this description below, primary contents which the userholds are referred to as held primary contents in the same way as above,and subsidiary contents which the user holds will be referred to as heldsubsidiary contents. Also, in the event that there is no particulardistinguishing between held primary contents and held subsidiarycontents, this will be referred to as held contents.

Also, in order to simplify and facilitate understanding of theprerequisites, we will say that the structure of the header informationof a primary content file is the same as that of a subsidiary contentfile, such as shown in FIG. 13, FIG. 14, and so on.

First, here, we will say that in step S1001, processing is beingexecuted for playing and outputting a content from the player unit 120.The content being played and output here may be either a primary contentor a subsidiary content.

In the following step S1002, the communication tool 102 requests theplayer unit 120 for data of one or more metadata items specified fromthe metadata items added to the content which is currently being played.

Now, an example of a trigger for starting the processing in step S1002may include a case wherein an operations is made as to the GUI of thecommunication tool 102 to instruct providing of recommended contentsrelated to the content currently being played by the player unit 120.Also, a metadata item to be specified at the time of a metadata requestin step S1002 as well, may be specified in accordance with useroperations. For example, if we say that “creator name” has beenspecified by the user as the metadata item to be requested, a request ismade in step S1002 specifying the metadata item of “creator name”.

The player unit 120 which has received the metadata request returns themetadata requested in step S1003. that is to say, the content describedin the metadata item specified with the metadata request is returned.

Now, at the time of the player unit 120 obtaining the content describedin the metadata item, data stored in the specified metadata item can beread out from the metadata items in the header information of thecontent currently being played.

For example, if we say that the metadata item “creator name” has beenspecified by the metadata request, the player unit 120 reads out andobtains the data described in the metadata item for creator name, in theheader information of the content currently being played. The playerunit 120 then hands the data of the metadata item obtained as describedabove, to the communication tool 102.

Note that with regard to step S1002, a configuration can be made whereina metadata request can be issued specifying two or more metadata itemsin accordance with user specifying operations, for example. In thiscase, in step S1003, the data of the content of each of the multiplespecified metadata items will be returned.

Upon receiving the metadata in step S1003, the communication tool 102transmits a recommended content list request to the subsidiary contentserver 2 in step S1004. For this recommended content list request, themetadata received in step S1003 (data described in the specifiedmetadata item) is stored in the operand thereof, for example. Thismetadata is used as the key of later-described content extracting(extracting conditions/searching conditions).

Note that in the event that multiple metadata are received in stepS1003, these metadata can be transmitted along with a conditionalexpression for extraction (searching) at the time of the recommendedcontent list request in step S1004. The conditional expression can alsobe specified by user operations at the time of specifying the metadataitems in step S1002, for example.

The recommended content processing unit 25 of the subsidiary contentserver 2 which has received the recommended content list request in stepS1004 executes extracting of the recommended contents and creating of arecommended content list based on the results of extracting, in stepS1005.

First, the extracting of the recommended contents in this case isperformed with the metadata received along with the recommended contentlist request in step S1004 as the key (extracting conditions/searchingconditions).

For example, let us say that what is in the obtained metadata is “TokkyoTaro” which is one of the creator names. In this case, the recommendedcontent processing unit 25 searches for subsidiary contents to which“Tokkyo Taro” is added as metadata from the subsidiary content database22 a. With the present embodiment, the metadata to be added to thecontent is stored in the header information, so the recommended contentprocessing unit 25 in this case searches for subsidiary contents havingthe text string of “Tokkyo Taro” in the header information as data.

While an arrangement may be made wherein only the metadata item of“creator name” in the header information is searched at the time ofsearching with the data “Tokkyo Taro” as the key for example, anarrangement may be made wherein the entire header information, i.e., theentire metadata added to the subsidiary content may be searched. In thecase of the latter search, in a case that the text string of “TokkyoTaro” is used in the content title for example, or a metadata item suchas creator comments, such subsidiary contents are also extracted,leading to a greater possibility that the search results will satisfythe user's expectations.

Also, as described earlier, in the event that multiple metadata arereceived as the key, the recommended content processing unit 25 performsa search for subsidiary contents following conditional expressions setregarding these metadata.

Upon searching and extracting of the subsidiary contents as therecommended contents having ended, the recommended content processingunit 25 creates a recommended content list in the same step S1005.

Now a recommended content list created here is made up of metadata(e.g., header information) for each of n extracted recommended contents1 through n, in the same way as with FIG. 22 for example, and thestructure may be the same as that in FIG. 24. Also, note that with thismodification as well, no recommendation order has been set among theregistered subsidiary contents in the recommended content list.

The recommended content processing unit 25 returns the recommendedcontent list created as described above to the user terminal device 4 instep S1006. At the user terminal device 4, the communication tool 102receives the recommended content list.

In this modification as well, no recommendation order has been set inthe recommended content list which the communication tool 102 hasreceived in step S1006. Accordingly, in order to set a recommendationorder, the communication tool 102 hands the data of the recommendedcontent list to the recommended content related processing unit 121 instep S1007, and also makes a recommendation order setting request.

At the recommended content related processing unit 121, a recommendationorder is set in step S1008 in response to the recommendation ordersetting request, and processing for reflecting the set recommendationorder in the recommended content list is performed.

In step S808 in FIG. 22, a recommendation order was set based on thenumber of lacking contents for each recommended content, but setting ofthe recommendation order in step S1008 is based on the relation betweenstatistics of metadata of the held contents managed at the user terminaldevice 4, and the metadata for each recommended content, which will bedescribed next.

The flowchart in FIG. 27 shows an example of processing procedures forsetting recommendation order in step S1008.

First, in step S1101 the recommended content related processing unit 121performs initialization by substituting 1 into the variable ncorresponding to the No. given to the recommended contents included inthe recommended content list.

Also, in step S1102, initialization is performed by substituting 1 intothe variable q corresponding to the No. given to the metadata itemcorresponding to the recommended contents n. As shown in FIG. 24, therecommended content list is made up of an array of metadata made up ofheader information for each of the recommended contents. Also, theheader information which is metadata for each of the recommendedcontents is made up of multiple metadata items corresponding topredetermined definition content. The variable q corresponds to the Nos.given to these metadata items for convenience.

In step S1103, the recommended content related processing unit 121substitutes 0 in the value of the variable PTn serving as an importancepoint, as initialization processing for obtaining a value as aimportance point PTn, i.e., a score indicating importance, correspondingto each recommended content n.

In step S1104, the recommended content related processing unit 121 readsin the q'th metadata item (metadata item q) from the metadata (headerinformation) corresponding to the n'th recommended content (recommendedcontent n) in the recommended content list, and obtains the content(data) described here. Note that what is described in the metadata itemwill be referred to as “keyword (metadata description content)” here.For example, while “creator”, “title”, “genre”, and so forth can begiven as metadata items as shown exemplarily in FIG. 14, what isdescribed in each of the metadata items such as “Tokkyo Taro”, “Tokkyono Kimochi”, “Ethnic”, and so forth, are keywords.

Now, the recommended content related processing unit 121 creates andmanages keyword statistical information having a structure shown in FIG.28, for example.

The keyword statistical information is statistics gathered on thecontent of description serving as keywords of metadata regarding heldcontents which the user (recommendation-receiving user) of the userterminal device 4 (content creating/sharing application 100) shown inFIG. 26 has, and the number of times of occurrence thereof.

That is to say, all keywords extracted from the metadata group (headerinformation) for each held content (here, keyword 1, keyword 2, . . .keyword X) are stored in the keyword space of the keyword statisticalinformation, and values based on the number of times of occurrence inthe entire held contents are correlated as points for each of thekeywords. Note that the way of obtaining points here is not restrictedin particular as long as it is based on the number of times ofoccurrence. Also, the number of times of occurrence may be used itselfas points.

With regard to keywords with high points in the keyword statisticalinformation, user interest can be said to high, since the number oftimes of occurrence is that high. Specifically, if there is a keyword“Tokkyo Taro” in the keyword statistical information, and the pointscorrelated to this keyword are considerably high, we can estimate thatthe user has great interest in contents relating to “Tokkyo Taro”.

Thus, the keyword statistical information can be said to be informationrepresenting tastes of the individual user with regard to contents, fromthe perspective of keywords in the metadata.

In step S1105, the recommended content related processing unit 121searches for a keyword matching the keyword of the data item q obtainedin step S1104 from the keyword statistical information. If there is amatching keyword here, the value of the point correlated with thiskeyword is set as point MP. That is to say, the value for the pointscorrelated with the keyword is substituted into the variable MP. Notethat if there is no matching keywords, 0 is set for the point MP.

In step S1106, with regard to the importance points PTn of therecommended content n, the recommended content related processing unit121 adds the points MP obtained in step S1105 above to the importancepoints PTn so far, and updates.

In step S1107, the recommended content related processing unit 121determines whether or not the variable q has reached the maximum valueor higher. In the event that a negative determination result is obtainedhere, this means that there are remaining metadata items regarding whichkeywords have not yet been obtained, so the variable q is incremented instep S1108 and the flow returns to step S1104.

In the event that the recommended content related processing unit 121has performed the procedures for steps S1104 through S1106 for all ofthe metadata items 1 through q, a positive determination result isobtained in step S1107, and the flow proceeds to step S1109.

In step S1109, the recommended content related processing unit 121determines whether or not the variable n has reached the maximum valueor higher. In the event that a negative determination result is obtainedhere, this means that there are remaining recommended contents regardingwhich importance points have not yet been obtained, so the variable n isincremented in step S1110 and the flow returns to step S1103. That is tosay, the flow transitions to processing for obtaining the importancepoints PT regarding the next recommended content n.

Upon importance points PT having been obtained regarding all recommendedcontents 1 through n, a positive determination result is obtained instep S1109, and the flow proceeds to step S1111.

With the description so far, the processing up to step S1110 can be saidto be processing for obtaining importance points PT1 through PTn foreach recommended content 1 through n.

Also, the importance points for each recommended content can be said tohigher in value the more keywords included in the metadata of therecommended content are registered in the keyword statisticalinformation. Moreover, the more matches with high-point, i.e.,high-scoring keywords of those registered in the keyword statisticalinformation, the higher the importance points are.

Accordingly, with regard to the recommended contents, we can say thatthe higher the importance points are, the higher the interest of theuser, matching the tastes thereof. In other words, the higher theimportance points of the recommended content, the higher the value ofrecommendation to the user is, i.e., the higher the recommendation ordershould be set.

Accordingly, in step S1111, the recommendation order regarding therecommended contents 1 through n is set based on the importance pointsPT1 through PTn obtained so far. That is to say, the most simple way ofsetting is to assign the recommendation order from the higher inimportance points to the lower, from the first to the n'th in order.

Returning to FIG. 26, in step S1008, upon the recommendation orderhaving been set by FIG. 27 above, the recommended content relatedprocessing unit 121 recreates the recommended content list so as toreflect the setting results of the recommendation order in the same stepS1008.

Next, in step S1009, the recommended content related processing unit 121returns the recommended content list recreated so as to reflect therecommendation order as described above, to the communication tool 102in step S1009.

The communication tool 102 uses the recommended content list received instep S1009 above and executes processing for display output of an imagepresenting the recommended contents according to a predetermined format,in step S1010.

Note that a wide range of metadata items may be considered other thanthe metadata items of the header information in FIGS. 13 and 14.

For example, in the case of a content which is a tune, this may be thefeeling of the melody (data corresponding to “happy”, “sad”, etc., askeywords), or a situation suitable for listening to the content (dataindicating a car drive, the ocean, etc., as keywords), and so on.

Also, in the event that the content is a tune, an arrangement may beconceived wherein a beat is obtained as the feature amount of the tune,by detecting the BPM (Beat Per Minute) or the like for example, and isused as a metadata item.

Also, such metadata does not have to be stored in the header informationof the content file, and with the case of the present embodiment forexample, may be independently by the content creating/sharingapplication 100 in a format correlated with the held contents.

Also, the greater the variety of definitions of metadata items is, themore likely it is overall that there will be keywords described withcloser significance. For example with regard to metadata items which canexpress the feeling of a melody, we can say that keywords “sad” and“melancholy” are similar. Also, we can say that “happy” and “up tempo”are similar.

To handle such a situation, a configuration may be made wherein similarkeywords under a set standard are integrated into a single keyword, uponwhich processing is executed for recommending subsidiary contents withthe modification shown in FIG. 26, for example.

In this case, keywords with similar significance will be integrated withregard to the metadata exchanged in steps S1003, S1004, and so forth, orkeyword statistical information, and so forth. Accordingly, increase inkeywords with similar significance can be handled, and accurateextracting of recommended contents and setting of recommendation ordercan be performed.

Note that with the configuration of subsidiary content recommendationdescribed with FIGS. 22 and 26 above, both are configurations where acontent being played by the player unit 120 serves as the starting pointand subsidiary contents related thereto are recommended. With thisconfiguration, recommended contents extracted relating to the contentbeing played are automatically presented on a GUI during the userenjoying playing of contents, which is easy to use for the user, and ishighly entertaining and handy in that not only can the played contentsbe enjoyed but information of recommended contents can also be obtained.

Also, with regard to the subsidiary content server 2 and user terminaldevice 4, each can perform the processing of extracting recommendedcontents relating to only the one content being played, and setting therecommendation order, for example. Accordingly, the processing load atthe subsidiary content server 2 and user terminal device 4 is alleviatedin this way as well, and is efficient.

However, an arrangement may be conceived wherein an operation can bemade from the user of the content creating/sharing application 100 forexample, to directly specify the content to serve as the starting pointfor subsidiary content recommendation, for example. With thisconfiguration, the content ID (case of FIG. 22) or metadata (case ofFIG. 26) of the content specified by this operation is transmitted tothe subsidiary content server 2 along with a recommended content listrequest.

With such a configuration, the user does not have to play the content toserve as the starting point when desiring to obtain information ofrecommended contents. There may be cases wherein playing a content toobtain the recommended content information may be troublesome for theuser, and the above configuration will be useful in such cases.

Also, the modification described with FIGS. 26 through 28 can beextended and applied to primary contents as well. FIG. 29 shows theprocessing executed at the content creating/sharing system forrecommending the primary contents. As with the case of FIG. 26, theplayer unit 120 (content managing/creating tool 101) at the userterminal device 4, the communication tool 102, and the recommendedcontent related processing unit 121 (content managing/creating tool101), are shown as primary entities executing processing here. However,the primary content server 1 is shown instead of the subsidiary contentserver 2.

In FIG. 29, steps S1201 through S1203 are the same as steps S1001through S1003 in FIG. 26.

Next, upon receiving the metadata in step S1203, the communication tool102 transmits a recommended content list request to the primary contentserver 1 in step S1204 along with the metadata obtained in step S1203above.

The primary content server 1 which has received the recommended contentlist request in step S1204 performs extracting of recommended contents,and creating of a recommended content list based on the extractionresults, in step S1205. Extracting of the recommended contents in thiscase is performed by searching for primary contents from the primarycontent database 12 a with the metadata received and obtained in stepS1204 along with the recommended content list request as a key(extracting conditions/searching conditions).

Upon the searching and extracting of subsidiary contents as recommendedcontents being completed, the primary content server 1 creates arecommended content list.

The recommended content list created in step S1205 can be formed ofmetadata (e.g., header information) for each primary content serving asthe extracted recommended contents, as with the earlier embodiments.

The primary content server 1 then returns the recommended content listcreated as described above to the user terminal device 4 in step S1206.In this case as well, at the user terminal device 4, the communicationtool 102 can receive the recommended content list.

In this case as well, no recommendation order has been set in therecommended content list received by the communication tool 102 in stepS1206. Accordingly, the communication tool 102 hands the data of therecommended content list to the recommended content related processingunit 121 in step S1207, and performs a recommendation order settingrequest.

The recommended content related processing unit 121 sets arecommendation order in step S1208, and performs processing to reflectthe set recommendation order in the recommended content list, inresponse to the recommended content recommendation order settingrequest.

The recommendation order setting processing in step S1208 can followingthe algorithm described with FIG. 27, for example. In step S1209, therecommended content related processing unit 121 returns the recommendedcontent list which has been recreated reflecting the recommendationorder to the communication tool 102.

In step S1210, the communication tool 102 uses the recommended contentlist handed thereto in step S1209 and executes processing for displayoutput of an image presenting the recommended contents according to apredetermined format.

In the case of combining the configuration in FIG. 29 above and theconfiguration in the earlier FIGS. 26 through 28, recommended contentscan be obtained regarding the primary contents and subsidiary contentswith the same technique.

Note that the configuration of the primary content server 1, subsidiarycontent server 2, communication server 3, and user terminal device 4 arebut one example, and may actually be changed as appropriate. Also, aconfiguration may be made wherein at least one of the above threeservers is dispersed among multiple servers. Alternatively, aconfiguration may be made where at least two or more of these serversare integrated.

Also, while no specific example of a GUI screen or the like has beenshown for the content creating/sharing application 100 has beendescribed so forth, various GUI configurations can be conceived for thecontent creating/sharing application 100.

Also, the functional configuration of the content creating/sharingapplication 100 also is not restricted to that described with referenceto FIGS. 10 and 11, and so forth, and various configurations can beconceived.

Also, the structure of the subsidiary content files shown in FIGS. 12Athrough 16, and so forth, is only an example, and a conceptual one, sovarious modifications and developments therefrom may be made basedthereupon.

Also, the processing procedures shown in the flowcharts in therespective drawings, i.e., program configurations, are only examples,and may be changed as appropriate in actual practice.

Also, the programs executed by the primary content server 1, subsidiarycontent server 2, communication server 3, and user terminal device 4,may be written to and stored in a storage region such as an internalHDD, storage unit, or the like, as described above, or may be stored ina removable storage medium and installed (including updates) from thestorage medium to the storage region. Also, an arrangement may beconceived wherein programs can be installed under the control of otherhost devices via a predetermined data interface. Further, an arrangementmay be conceived wherein programs are stored on a storage device on thenetwork, and can be downloaded and obtained from the storage device bythe networking functions of the primary content server 1, subsidiarycontent server 2, communication server 3, and user terminal device 4.

The present application contains subject matter related to thatdisclosed in Japanese Priority Patent Application JP 2008-146013 filedin the Japan Patent Office on Jun. 3, 2008, the entire content of whichis hereby incorporated by reference.

It should be understood by those skilled in the art that variousmodifications, combinations, sub-combinations and alterations may occurdepending on design requirements and other factors insofar as they arewithin the scope of the appended claims or the equivalents thereof.

1-7. (canceled)
 8. An information processing apparatus, comprising: atleast one communication interface; and processing circuitry configuredto: receive, via the at least one communication interface, a firstplurality of content items from a first client terminal; generate asecond content item using at least some of the first plurality ofcontent items; identify the second content item as recommended contentbased at least in part on previously received preferences of a seconduser; and provide, via the at least one communication interface, thesecond content item to a second client terminal of the second user. 9.The information processing apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processingcircuitry is further configured to generate a third content item usingat least some of the first plurality of content items.
 10. Theinformation processing apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processingcircuitry is further configured to receive, via the at least onecommunication interface, feedback data from at least the second user.11. The information processing apparatus of claim 10, wherein theprocessing circuitry is further configured to record preferences of thesecond user based on the feedback data received from the second user.12. The information processing apparatus of claim 8, wherein the firstplurality of content items and the second content item include videodata.
 13. The information processing apparatus of claim 8, wherein thefirst plurality of content items and the second content item includeaudio data.
 14. The information processing apparatus of claim 8, whereinproviding the second content item to the second client terminalcomprises sending, via the at least one communication interface, contentdata associated with the second content item.
 15. The informationprocessing apparatus of claim 8, wherein providing the second contentitem to the second client terminal comprises sending, via the at leastone communication interface, instructions indicating how to render thesecond content item.
 16. The information processing apparatus of claim8, wherein identifying the second content item as recommended contentcomprises determining how many of the at least some of the firstplurality of content items from which the second content was generatedare stored by the second client terminal.
 17. The information processingapparatus of claim 8, wherein identifying the second content item asrecommended content comprises determining how many of the at least someof the first plurality of content items from which the second contentwas generated are not stored by the second client terminal.
 18. Amethod, comprising: receiving, via at least one communication interface,a first plurality of content items from a first client terminal;generating a second content item using at least some of the firstplurality of content items; identifying the second content item asrecommended content based at least in part on previously receivedpreferences of a second user; and providing, via the at least onecommunication interface, the second content item to a second clientterminal of the second user.
 19. At least one non-transitory computerreadable medium comprising executable instructions that, when executedby an information processing apparatus, perform a method comprising:receiving, via at least one communication interface, a first pluralityof content items from a first client terminal; generating a secondcontent item using at least some of the first plurality of contentitems; identifying the second content item as recommended content basedat least in part on previously received preferences of a second user;and providing, via the at least one communication interface, the secondcontent item to a second client terminal of the second user.